*W  T^MOU 
BUROPEAN 


MICHAEL  ANGELO. 


FAMOUS 

EUROPEAN  ARTISTS 


BY 

SARAH   K.   BOLTON 

AUTHOR  OF  "  POOR   BOYS  WHO   BECAME   FAMOUS,"  "  GIRLS  WHO   BECAME 

FAMOUS,"  "STORIES  FROM  LIFE,"  "  FAMOUS  AMERICAN  AUTHORS," 

"  FAMOUS  AMERICAN  STATESMEN,"   "  SOCIAL  STUDIES  IN 

ENGLAND,"    "  FROM   HEART  AND  NATURE," 

"  FAMOUS  MEN  OF  SCIENCE,"  ETC. 


"  Do  not  act  as  if  you  had  ten  thousand  years  to  throw  away. 
Death  stands  at  your  elbow.  Be  good  for  something  while  you  live, 
and  it  is  in  your  powsr." — MARCUS  AURELIUS. 


NEW    YORK 
THOMAS  Y.   CROWELL  &  CO. 

46  EAST  FOURTEENTH  STREET 


COPYRIGHT,  1890,  BY 
THOMAS  Y.  CROWELL  &  Co. 


C.  J.  PETERS  &  SON, 

TYPOORAPHER6    AND    ElECTROTYPERS, 
14*    Hie*    ST«tt,    B01TON. 


TO 

Plfgg  I£li^a6etf)  C.  Bullarfc 

WITH 

THE  APPRECIATION   AND  ESTEEM 

OF 

THE  AUTHOR. 


2046831 


PREFACE. 


HERMANN  GRIMM  says,  "  Eeverence  for  what  is 
great  is  a  universal  feeling.  .  .  .  When  we  look  at 
great  men,  it  is  as  if  we  saw  a  victorious  army, 
the  flower  of  a  people,  marching  along.  .  .  .  They 
all  speak  one  common  language,  know  nothing  of 
castes,  of  noble  or  pariah ;  and  he  who  now  or  in 
times  to  come  thinks  or  acts  like  them  rises  up 
to  them,  and  is  admitted  into  their  circle." 

Possibly,  by  reading  of  these  great  men  some 
may  be  led  to  "  think  and  act  like  them,"  and  thus 
"be  admitted  into  their  circle."  All  of  these  pos- 
sessed untiring  industry  and  a  resolute  purpose  to 
succeed.  Most  were  poor  in  early  life. 

S.  K.  B. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

MICHAEL  ANGELO 7 

LEONABDO  DA  VINCI 66 

RAPHAEL  OF  URBINO 105 

TITIAN 155 

MUBILLO 203 

RUBENS 246 

REMBRANDT 286 

Sm  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS 318 

SIB  EDWIN  LANDSEEB 367 

TUBNEB                                396 


MICHAEL  ANGELO. 


WHO  has  ever  stood  in  Florence,  and  been 
warmed  by  her  sunlight,  refreshed  by  her 
fragrant  flowers,  and  ennobled  by  her  divine  art, 
without  saying  with  the  poet  Kogers,  — 

"  Of  all  the  fairest  cities  of  the  earth, 
None  is  so  fair  as  Florence.     'Tis  a  gem 
Of  purest  ray;  and  what  a  light  broke  forth 
When  it  emerged  from  darkness  !    Search  within, 
Without,  all  is  enchantment !    'Tis  the  Past 
Contending  with  the  Present  ;  and  in  turn 
Each  has  the  mastery." 

Pitiful  in  her  struggles  for  freedom,  the  very 
centre  of  art  and  learning  in  the  fifteenth  century, 
she  has  to-day  a  charm  peculiarly  her  own. 

"Other  though  not  many  cities  have  histories 
as  noble,  treasures  as  vast ;  but  no  other  city  has 
them  living,  and  ever  present  in  her  midst,  famil- 
iar as  household  words,  and  touched  by  every 
baby's  hand  and  peasant's  step,  as  Florence  has. 

"Every  line,  every  road,  every  gable,  every 
tower,  has  some  story  of  the  past  present  in  it. 
Every  tocsin  that  sounds  is  a  chronicle ;  every 
bridge  that  unites  the  two  banks  of  the  river, 


8  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

unites  also  the  crowds  of  the  living  with  the  hero- 
ism of  the  dead. 

"  The  beauty  of  the  past  goes  with  you  at  every 
step  in  Florence.  Buy  eggs  in  the  market,  and  you 
buy  them  where  Donatello  bought  those  which  fell 
down  in  a  broken  heap  before  the  wonder  of  the 
crucifix.  Pause  in  a  narrow  by-street  in  a  crowd, 
and  it  shall  be  that  Borgo  Allegri,  which  the  peo- 
ple so  baptized  for  love  of  the  old  painter  and  the 
new-born  art.  Stray  into  a  great  dark  church  at 
evening  time,  where  peasants  tell  their  beads  in 
the  vast  marble  silence,  and  you  are  where  the 
whole  city  flocked,  weeping,  at  midnight,  to  look 
their  last  upon  the  dead  face  of  their  Michael 
Angelo.  Buy  a  knot  of  March  anemones  or  April 
arum  lilies,  and  you  may  bear  them  with  you 
through  the  same  city  ward  in  which  the  child 
Ghirlandaio  once  played  amidst  the  gold  and  sil- 
ver garlands  that  his  father  fashioned  for  the 
young  heads  of  the  Kenaissance.  Ask  for  a  shoe- 
maker, and  you  shall  find  the  cobbler  sitting  with 
his  board  in  the  same  old  twisting,  shadowy  street- 
way  where  the  old  man  Toscanelli  drew  his  charts 
that  served  a  fair-haired  sailor  of  Genoa,  called 
Columbus." 

Florence,  Shelley's  "  Smokeless  City,"  was  the 
ardently  loved  home  of  Michael  Angelo.  He  was 
born  March  6,  1475,  or,  according  to  some  authori- 
ties, 1474,  the  Florentines  reckoning  time  from  the 
incarnation  of  Christ,  instead  of  his  birth. 

Lodovico  Buonarotti,  the  father  of  Michael  An- 


MICHAEL  ANGELO.  9 

gelo,  had  been  appointed  governor  of  Caprese  and 
Chiusi,  and  had  moved  from  Florence  to  the  Castle 
of  Caprese,  where  this  boy,  his  second  child,  was 
born.  The  mother,  Francesca,  was,  like  her  hus- 
band, of  noble  family,  and  but  little  more  than 
half  his  age,  being  nineteen  and  he  thirty-one. 

After  two  years  they  returned  to  Florence,  leav- 
ing the  child  at  Settignano,  three  miles  from  the 
city,  on  an  estate  of  the  Buonarottis'.  He  was 
intrusted  to  the  care  of  a  stone-mason's  wife,  as 
nurse.  Living  among  the  quarrymen  and  sculptors 
of  this  picturesque  region,  he  began  to  draw  as 
soon  as  he  could  use  his  hands.  He  took  delight 
in  the  work  of  the  masons,  and  they  in  turn  loved 
the  bright,  active  child.  On  the  walls  of  the  stone- 
mason's house  he  made  charcoal  sketches,  which 
were  doubtless  praised  by  the  foster-parents. 

Lodovico,  who  was  quite  too  proud  for  manual 
labor,  designed  that  his  son  should  become  a  dealer 
in  silks  and  woollens,  as  probably  he  would  thus 
amass  wealth.  With  such  a  project  in  mind,  he 
was  certainly  unwise  to  place  the  child  in  the  ex- 
hilarating air  of  the  mountains,  where  nature  would 
be  almost  sure  to  win  him  away  from  the  counting- 
room. 

When  the  boy  was  old  enough  he  was  sent  by 
his  father  to  a  grammar  school  in  Florence,  kept  by 
Francesco  of  Urbino,  a  noted  grammarian.  He 
made  little  progress  in  his  studies,  for  nearly  all  of 
his  time  was  spent  in  drawing  and  in  visiting  the 
ateliers  of  the  different  artists  of  the  city.  Vasari 


10  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

says  he  was  beaten  by  his  father  and  other  elders ; 
but  the  beatings  did  no  good,  —  indeed,  they  proba- 
bly made  the  quiet,  self-poised  lad  more  indifferent 
to  trade  and  more  devoted  to  art. 

Fortunately,  in  these  early  years,  as  has  so  often 
happened  to  men  of  genius,  Michael  Angelo  found 
a  congenial  friend,  Francesco  Granacci,  a  talented 
youth  of  good  family,  lovable  in  nature,  and  a 
student  in  art.  He  was  a  pupil  of  one  of  the 
best  painters  in  Italy,  Doraenico  Ghirlandaio.  He 
loaned  drawings  to  Michael  Angelo,  and  made  the 
boy  of  fourteen  more  anxious  than  ever  to  be  an 
artist. 

Lodovico  at  last  saw  that  a  lad  so  absorbed  in 
art  would  probably  be  a  failure  in  silk  and  wool, 
and  placed  him  in  the  studio  of  Ghirlandaio,  with 
the  promise  of  his  receiving  six  gold  florins  the 
first  year,  eight  the  second,  and  ten  the  third. 

Granacci,  who  was  nineteen,  and  Michael  Angelo 
now  worked  happily  together.  The  master  had 
undertaken  to  paint  the  choir  of  the  Church  of 
Santa  Maria  Novella,  and  thus  the  boys  were 
brought  into  important  work. 

One  day,  when  the  painters  were  absent,  Michael 
Angelo  drew  the  scaffolding,  with  all  who  worked 
on  it,  so  perfectly  that  Ghirlandaio  exclaimed,  when 
he  saw  it :  "  This  youth  understands  more  than  I 
do  myself."  He  also  corrected  one  of  the  master's 
drawings,  the  draped  form  of  a  woman.  Sixty 
years  afterwards,  when  this  sketch  was  shown  to 
Michael  Angelo,  he  said,  "I  almost  think  that  I 


MICHAEL  ANGELO.  11 

knew  more  art  in  my  youth  than  I  do  in  my  old 
age." 

The  young  artist  now  painted  his  first  picture,  a 
plate  of  Martin  Schongauer's  of  Germany,  repre- 
senting St.  Anthony  tormented  by  devils.  One 
pulls  his  hair,  one  his  garments,  one  seizes  the 
book  hanging  from  his  girdle,  one  snatches  a  stick 
from  his  hand,  while  others  pinch,  and  tease,  and 
roll  over  him.  Claws,  scales,  horns,  and  the  like, 
all  help  to  make  up  these  monsters.  Michael 
Angelo  went  to  the  fish-market,  and  carefully 
studied  the  eyes  and  scales  of  the  fish,  with  their 
colors,  and  painted  such  a  picture  that  it  was  mis- 
taken for  the  original. 

After  a  year  spent  with  Ghirlandaio,  the  master 
seems  to  have  become  envious,  and  the  three-years' 
contract  was  mutually  broken,  through  a  fortunate 
opening  for  Michael  Angelo.  Cosmo  de'  Medici, 
"  Pater  Patriae,"  had  collected  ancient  and  modern 
sculptures  and  paintings,  and  these  art  treasures 
were  enriched  by  his  grandson,  Lorenzo  the  Mag- 
nificent, who  opened  them  to  students,  with  prizes 
for  the  best  work.  He  founded  an  academy  and 
placed  it  under  the  charge  of  Bertoldo,  the  favorite 
disciple  of  Donatello. 

Lorenzo  made  himself  the  idol  of  the  people  by 
his  generosity,  consideration,  and  unquestioned 
ability  to  lead.  He  arranged  public  festivities, 
and  wrote  verses  to  be  sung  by  girls  as  they  danced 
in  the  public  square,  in  the  month  of  May.  All 
the  young  people  knew  and  loved  him. 


12  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

On  one  of  these  festive  occasions,  when  the 
triumphal  procession  of  Paulus  ^Emilius  was  being 
represented,  Granacci  found  an  opportunity  of 
winning  Lorenzo's  favor,  and  thereby  gained  access 
to  the  art  treasures.  At  once  he  thought  of  his 
friend,  and  Michael  Angelo  was  soon  studying  the 
marbles  and  pictures  of  the  great  Medici. 

The  boy  of  fifteen  quickly  made  friends  with  the 
stone-masons,  and,  getting  from  them  a  piece  of 
marble,  began  to  copy  the  antique  masque  of  a 
faun.  However,  his  work  was  not  like  the  origi- 
nal, but  the  mouth  was  open  so  that  the  teeth  were 
visible.  When  Lorenzo  came  among  the  pupils  he 
observed  the  masque  and  praised  it,  but  said  to 
the  boy,  "  You  have  made  your  faun  so  old,  and 
yet  you  have  left  him  all  his  teeth ;  you  should 
have  known  that  at  such  an  advanced  age  there 
are  generally  some  wanting." 

At  once  Michael  Angelo  broke  out  a  tooth,  filling 
the  gum  as  though  it  had  dropped  out.  When  Lo- 
renzo came  again  he  was  delighted,  and  told  the 
boy  to  send  for  his  father.  Lodovico  came  reluc- 
tantly, for  he  was  not  yet  reconciled  to  the  choice 
of  "  art  and  poverty  "  which  his  son  had  made. 

Lorenzo  received  him  cordially  and  asked  his 
occupation.  "  I  have  never  followed  any  business," 
was  the  reply;  "but  I  live  upon  the  small  income 
of  the  possessions  left  me  by  my  ancestors.  These 
I  endeavor  to  keep  in  order,  and,  so  far  as  I  can, 
to  improve  them." 

"Well,"  said  Lorenzo,  "look  around  you;  and, 


MICHAEL   ANGELO.  13 

if  I  can  do  anything  for  you,  only  apply  to  me. 
Whatever  is  in  my  power  shall  be  done." 

Lodovico  received  a  vacant  post  in  the  custom- 
house, and  Michael  Angelo  was  taken  into  the  Me- 
dici palace  and  treated  as  a  son.  For  three  years 
he  lived  in  this  regal  home,  meeting  all  the  great 
and  learned  men  of  Italy :  Politian,  the  poet  and 
philosopher;  Ficino,  the  head  of  the  Platonic 
Academy ;  Pico  della  Mirandola,  the  prince  and 
scholar,  and  many  others. 

Who  can  estimate  such  influence  over  a  youth  ? 
Who  can  measure  the  good  that  Lorenzo  de'  Medici 
was  doing  for  the  world  unwittingly  ?  To  develop 
a  grand  man  from  a  boy,  is  more  than  to  carve  a 
statue  from  the  marble. 

Michael  Angelo  was  now  of  middle  height, 
with  dark  hair,  small  gray  eyes,  and  of  delicate 
appearance,  but  he  became  robust  as  he  grew 
older. 

Politian  was  the  tutor  of  the  two  Medici  youths, 
Giovanni  and  Giulio,  who  afterwards  became  Leo 
X.  and  Clement  VII.  He  encouraged  Michael 
Angelo,  when  eighteen,  to  make  a  marble  bas-re- 
lief of  the  battle  of  Hercules  with  the  Centaurs. 
This  is  still  preserved  in  the  Buonarotti  family, 
as  the  sculptor  would  never  part  with  it.  The 
head  of  the  faun  is  in  the  Uffizi  gallery. 

Michael  Angelo  now  executed  a  Madonna  in 
bronze,  and  copied  the  wonderful  frescos  of  Ma- 
saccio  in  the  Brancacci  Chapel  of  Santa  Maria 
del  Carmine  (usually  called  the  Carmine  Chapel), 


14  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

the  same  which  inspired  Fra  Angelico,  Raphael, 
and  Andrea  del  Sarto.  "  The  importance  of  these 
frescos  arises  from  the  fact  that  they  hold  the 
same  place  in  the  history  of  art  during  the  fif- 
teenth century  as  the  works  of  Giotto,  in  the 
Arena  Chapel  at  Padua,  hold  during  the  four- 
teenth. Each  series  forms  an  epoch  in  painting, 
from  which  may  be  dated  one  of  those  great  and 
sudden  onward  steps  which  have  in  various  ages 
and  countries  marked  the  development  of  art. 
The  history  of  Italian  painting  is  divided  into 
three  distinct  and  well-defined  periods,  by  the 
Arena  and  Brancacci  Chapels,  and  the  frescos  of 
Michael  Angelo  and  Raphael  in  the  Vatican." 

While  Michael  Angelo  was  copying  these  paint- 
ings of  Masaccio,  he  took  no  holidays,  and  gave 
the  hours  of  night  to  his  labors.  Ambition  made 
work  a  delight.  He  studied  anatomy  like  a  dev- 
otee. Dead  bodies  were  conveyed  from  the  hos- 
pital to  a  cell  in  the  convent  of  Santo  Spirito,  the 
artist  rewarding  the  prior  by  a  crucifix  almost  as 
large  as  life,  which  he  carved  from  wood. 

The  youth  could  but  know  his  superiority  to 
others,  and  was  not  always  wise  enough  to  conceal 
his  contempt  for  mediocrity,  or  for  the  young  men 
who  played  at  life.  One  of  his  fellow-students, 
Torrigiani,  grew  so  angry  at  him,  probably  from 
some  slighting  remark,  that  he  struck  him  with  his 
fist,  disfiguring  his  face  for  life.  Michael  Angelo 
is  said  to  have  merely  replied  to  this  brutal  assault, 
"You  will  be  remembered  only  as  the  man  who 


M  1C U A  EL   ANGELO.  15 

broke  my  nose."  Torrigiani  was  at  once  banished, 
and  died  miserably  in  the  Spanish  Inquisition. 

In  April,  1492,  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent  died,  in 
the  very  prime  of  his  life.  Michael  Angelo  was  so 
overcome  that  for  a  long  time  he  was  unable  to 
collect  his  thoughts  for  work.  The  self-reliant 
young  man,  cold  outwardly,  had  a  warm  and  gener- 
ous heart. 

He  went  home  to  the  Buonarotti  mansion,  opened 
a  studio,  purchased  a  piece  of  marble  and  made  a 
Hercules  four  feet  in  height.  It  stood  for  many 
years  in  the  Strozzi  Palace  in  Florence,  was  sold  to 
France,  and  is  now  lost. 

Piero  de'  Medici  succeeded  to  his  father  Lorenzo, 
who  is  said  to  have  remarked  that  "  he  had  three 
sons :  the  first  good,  the  second  clever,  the  third  a 
fool.  The  good  one  was  Giuliano,  thirteen  years 
old  at  the  death  of  his  father ;  the  clever  one  was 
Giovanni,  seventeen  years  old,  but  a  cardinal 
already  by  favor  of  the  pope,  whose  son  had  mar- 
ried a  daughter  of  Lorenzo's;  and  the  fool  was 
Piero." 

In  January,  1494.  an  unusual  storm  occurred  in 
Florence,  and  the  snow  lay  from  four  to  six  feet 
deep.  Piero,  with  childish  enthusiasm,  sent  for 
Michael  Angelo  and  bade  him  form  a  statue  of 
snow  in  the  courtyard  of  the  palace.  The  Medici 
was  so  pleased  with  the  result  that  he  brought  the 
artist  to  sit  at  his  own  table,  and  to  live  in  the 
same  rooms  assigned  to  him  by  Lorenzo  his 
father. 


16  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

Piero  is  said,  however,  to  have  valued  equally 
with  the  sculptor  a  Spaniard  who  served  in  his 
stables,  because  he  could  outrun  a  horse  at  full 
gallop. 

Piero  was  proud,  without  the  virtues  of  his 
father,  and  soon  alienated  the  affections  of  the 
Florentines.  Savonarola,  the  Dominican  monk  of 
San  Marco,  was  preaching  against  the  luxuries  and 
vices  of  the  age.  So  popular  was  he,  says  Burla- 
macchi,  that  "  the  people  got  up  in  the  middle  of 
the  night  to  get  places  for  the  sermon,  and  came 
to  the  door  of  the  cathedral,  waiting  outside  till  it 
should  be  opened,  making  no  account  of  any  incon- 
venience, neither  of  the  cold,  nor  the  mud,  nor  of 
standing  in  winter  with  their  feet  on  the  marble  ; 
and  among  them  were  young  and  old,  women  and 
children,  of  every  sort,  who  came  with  such  jubilee 
and  rejoicing  that  it  was  bewildering  to  hear  them, 
going  to  the  sermon  as  to  a  wedding. 

"  Then  the  silence  was  great  in  the  church,  each 
one  going  to  his  place ;  and  he  who  could  read,  with 
a  taper  in  his  hand,  read  the  service  and  other 
prayers.  And  though  many  thousand  people  were 
thus  collected  together,  no  sound  was  to  be  heard, 
not  even  a  'hush,'  until  the  arrival  of  the  children 
who  sang  hymns  with  so  much  sweetness  that 
heaven  seemed  to  have  opened.  Thus  they  waited 
three  or  four  hours  till  the  padre  entered  the  pul- 
pit, and  the  attention  of  so  great  a  mass  of  people, 
all  with  eyes  and  ears  intent  upon  the  preacher, 
was  wonderful ;  they  listened  so  that  when  the 


MICHAEL  ANGELO.  17 

sermon  reached  its  end  it  seemed  to  them  that  it 
had  scarcely  begun." 

Piero's  weakness  and  Savonarola's  power  soon 
bore  fruit.  Michael  Angelo  foresaw  the  fall  of  the 
Medici,  and,  unwilling  to  fight  for  a  ruler  whom  he 
could  not  respect,  fled  to  Venice.  But  his  scanty 
supply  of  money  was  soon  exhausted,  and  he 
returned  to  Bologna,  on  his  way  back  to  Florence. 

At  Bologna,  the  law  required  that  every  foreigner 
entering  the  gates  should  have  a  seal  of  red  Avax 
on  his  thumb,  showing  permission.  This  Michael 
Angelo  and  his  friends  neglected  to  obtain,  and 
were  at  once  arrested  and  fined.  They  would  have 
been  imprisoned  save  that  Aldovrandi,  a  member 
of  the  council,  and  of  a  distinguished  family,  set 
them  free,  and  invited  the  sculptor  to  his  own 
house,  where  he  remained  for  a  year.  Together 
they  read  Dante  and  Petrarch,  and  the  magistrate 
soon  became  ardently  attached  to  the  bright  youth 
of  nineteen. 

In  the  Church  of  San  Petronio  are  the  bones  of 
St.  Domenico  in  a  marble  coffin ;  on  the  sarcophagus 
two  kneeling  figures  were  to  be  placed  by  Nicolo 
Pisaiio,  a  contemporary  of  Cimabue.  One  was 
unfinished  in  its  drapery,  and  the  other,  a  kneeling 
angel  holding  a  candelabrum,  was  not  even  begun. 
At  Aldovrandi's  request  Michael  Angelo  completed 
this  work.  So  exasperated  were  the  artists  of 
Bologna  at  his  skill  that  he  felt  obliged  to  leave 
their  city,  and  return  to  Florence.  What  a  pitiful 
exhibition  of  human  weakness  ! 


18  MICHAEL   ANGELO. 

Meantime  Piero  had  fled  from  Florence.  Charles 
VIII.  of  France  had  made  a  triumphal  entrance 
into  the  city,  and  Savonarola  had  become  lawgiver. 
"  Jesus  Christ  is  the  King  of  Florence,"  was  writ- 
ten over  the  gates  of  the  Palazzo  Vecchio,  hymns 
were  sung  in  the  streets  instead  of  ballads,  the 
sacrament  was  received  daily,  and  worldly  books, 
even  Petrarch  and  Virgil,  and  sensuous  works  of  art, 
were  burned  on  a  huge  pile.  "  Even  Fra  Bartolo- 
meo  was  so  carried  away  by  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  moment  as  to  bring  his  life-academy  studies  to 
be  consumed  on  this  pyre,  forgetful  that,  in  the 
absence  of  such  studies,  he  could  never  have  risen 
above  low  mediocrity.  Lorenzo  di  Credi,  another 
and  devoted  follower  of  Savonarola,  did  the  same." 

Michael  Angelo,  though  an  ardent  admirer  of 
Savonarola,  and  an  attendant  upon  his  preaching, 
seems  not  to  have  lost  his  good  judgment,  or  to 
have  considered  the  making  of  a  sleeping  Cupid  a 
sin.  When  the  beautiful  work  was  completed,  at 
the  suggestion  of  a  friend,  it  was  buried  in  the 
ground  for  a  season,  to  give  it  the  appearance  of 
an  antique,  and  then  sold  to  Cardinal  San  Giorgio 
for  two  hundred  ducats,  though  Michael  Angelo 
received  but  thirty  as  his  share.  Soon  after,  the 
cardinal  ascertained  how  he  had  been  imposed  upon, 
and  invited  the  artist  to  Rome,  with  the  hope  that 
the  hundred  and  seventy  ducats  could  be  obtained 
from  the  dishonest  agent  who  effected  the  sale. 
Vasari  states  that  many  persons  believed  that  the 
agent,  and  not  Michael  Angelo,  buried  the  statue 


MICHAEL  ANGELO.  19 

for  gain,  which  seems  probable  from  all  we  know 
of  the  artist's  upright  character. 

Michael  Angelo  went  to  the  Eternal  City  in  June, 
1496.  He  was  still  young,  only  twenty-one.  "  The 
idea,"  says  Hermann  Grimm,  in  his  scholarly  life 
of  the  artist,  "  that  the  young  Michael  Angelo,  full 
of  the  bustle  of  the  fanatically  excited  Florence, 
was  led  by  his  fate  to  Rome,  and  trod  for  the  first 
time  that  soil  where  the  most  corrupt  doings  were, 
nevertheless,  lost  sight  of  in  the  calm  grandeur  of 
the  past,  has  something  in  it  that  awakens  thought. 
It  was  the  first  step  in  his  actual  life.  He  had 
before  been  led  hither  and  thither  by  men  and  by 
his  own  indistinct  views ;  now,  thrown  upon  his 
own  resources,  he  takes  a  new  start  for  his  future, 
and  what  he  now  produces  begins  the  series  of  his 
masterly  works." 

Michael  Angelo's  first  efforts  in  Rome  were  for 
a  noble  and  cultivated  man,  Jacopo  Galli :  a  Cupid, 
now  lost,  and  a  Bacchus,  nearly  as  large  as  life, 
which  Shelley  declared  "a  revolting  misunder- 
standing of  the  spirit  and  the  idea  of  Bacchus." 
Perhaps  the  artist  did  not  put  much  heart  into  the 
statue  of  the  intoxicated  youth.  His  next  work, 
however,  the  Pieta,  executed  for  Cardinal  St. 
Denis,  the  French  ambassador  at  Rome,  who  de- 
sired to  leave  some  monument  of  himself  in  the 
great  city,  made  Michael  Angelo  famous.  Sonnets 
were  written  to  the  Pieta,  the  Virgin  Mary  holding 
the  dead  Christ. 

Of  this  work  Grimm   says  :  "  The    position  of 


20  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

the  body,  resting  on  the  knees  of  the  woman ;  the 
folds  of  her  dress,  which  is  gathered  together  by  a 
band  across  the  bosom ;  the  inclination  of  the  head, 
as  she  bends  over  her  son  in  a  manner  inconsolable 
and  yet  sublime,  or  his,  as  it  rests  in  her  arms 
dead,  exhausted,  and  with  mild  features,  —  we  feel 
every  touch  was  for  the  first  time  created  by 
Michael  Angelo,  and  that  that  in  which  he  imitated 
others  in  this  group,  was  only  common  property, 
which  he  used  because  its  use  was  customary.  .  .  . 

"  Our  deepest  sympathy  is  awakened  by  the  sight 
of  Christ,  —  the  two  legs,  with  weary  feet,  hanging 
down  sideways  from  the  mother's  knee;  the  fall- 
ing arm  ;  the  failing,  sunken  body  ;  the  head  droop- 
ing backwards,  —  the  attitude  of  the  whole  human 
form  lying  there,  as  if  by  death  he  had  again 
become  a  child  whom  the  mother  had  taken  in  her 
arms  ;  at  the  same  time,  in  the  countenance  there 
is  a  wonderful  blending  of  the  old  customary  By- 
zantine type,  —  the  longish  features  and  parted 
beard,  and  the  noblest  elements  of  the  national 
Jewish  expression.  None  before  Michael  Angelo 
would  have  thought  of  this ;  the  oftener  the  work 
is  contemplated,  the  more  touching  does  its  beauty 
become,  —  everywhere  the  purest  nature,  in  har- 
mony both  in  spirit  and  exterior. 

"  Whatever  previously  to  this  work  had  been 
produced  by  sculptors  in  Italy  passes  into  shadow, 
and  assumes  the  appearance  of  attempts  in  which 
there  is  something  lacking,  whether  in  idea  or  in 
execution ;  here,  both  are  provided  for.  The  artist, 


MICHAEL   ANGELO.  21 

the  work,  and  the  circumstances  of  the  time,  com- 
bine together ;  and  the  result  is  something  that 
deserves  to  be  called  perfect.  Michael  Angelo 
numbered  four  and  twenty  years  when  he  had  fin- 
ished his  Pieta.  He  was  the  first  master  in  Italy, 
the  first  in  the  world  from  henceforth,  says  Con- 
divi ;  indeed,  they  go  so  far  as  to  maintain,  he 
says  further,  that  Michael  Angelo  surpassed  the 
ancient  masters." 

How  could  Michael  Angelo  have  carved  this  work 
at  twenty-four  ?  His  knowledge  of  anatomy  was 
surprising.  He  had  become  imbued  with  great 
and  noble  thoughts  from  Savonarola's  preaching, 
and  from  his  ardent  reading  of  Dante  and  Petrarch  ; 
he  was  eager  for  fame,  and  he  believed  in  his  own 
power.  And,  besides  all  this,  he  was  in  love  with 
art.  When  a  friend  said  to  him,  years  afterwards, 
"  'Tis  a  pity  that  you  have  not  married,  that  you 
might  have  left  children  to  inherit  the  fruit  of 
these  honorable  toils,"  he  replied,  "  I  have  only  too 
much  of  a  wife  in  my  art,  and  she  has  given  me 
trouble  enough.  As  to  my  children,  they  are  the 
works  that  I  shall  leave ;  and  if  they  are  not  worth 
much,  they  will  at  least  live  for  some  time.  Woe  to 
Lorenzo  Ghiberti  if  he  had  not  made  the  gates  of 
San  Giovanni ;  for  his  children  and  grandchildren 
have  sold  or  squandered  all  that  he  left ;  but  the 
gates  are  still  in  their  place.  These  are  so  beauti- 
ful that  they  are  worthy  of  being  the  gates  of 
Paradise." 

The  Pietk  is  now  in  St.  Peter's.    When  some  per- 


22  MICHAEL   ANGELO. 

son  criticised  the  youthful  appearance  of  the  Virgin, 
and  captiously  asked  where  a  mother  could  be 
found,  like  this  one,  younger  than  her  son,  the 
painter  answered,  "  In  Paradise/' 

"  The  love  and  care,"  says  Vasari,  "  which 
Michael  Angelo  had  given  to  this  group  were  such 
that  he  there  left  his  name  —  a  thing  he  never  did 
again  for  any  work  —  on  the  cincture  which  girdles 
the  robe  of  Our  Lady ;  for  it  happened  one  day 
that  Michael  Angelo,  entering  the  place  where  it 
was  erected,  found  a  large  assemblage  of  strangers 
from  Lombardy  there,  who  were  praising  it  highly  ; 
one  of  them,  asking  who  had  done  it,  was  told,  '  Our 
Hunchback  of  Milan ; '  hearing  which,  Michael 
Angelo  remained  silent,  although  surprised  that 
his  work  should  be  attributed  to  another.  But  one 
night  he  repaired  to  St.  Peter's  with  a  light  and  his 
chisels,  to  engrave  his  name  on  the  figure,  which 
seems  to  breathe  a  spirit  as  perfect  as  her  form  and 
countenance." 

Michael  Angelo  was  now  urged  by  his  father  and 
brother  to  return  to  Florence.  Lodovico,  his  father, 
writes  him:  " Buonarotto  tells  me  that  you  live 
with  great  economy,  or  rather  penury.  Economy 
is  good,  but  penury  is  bad,  because  it  is  a  vice  dis- 
pleasing to  God  and  to  the  people  of  this  world, 
and,  besides,  will  do  harm  both  to  soul  and  body." 

However,  when  his  son  returned,  after  four  years 
in  Rome,  carrying  the  money  he  had  saved  to 
establish  his  brothers  in  business,  the  proud  father 
was  not  displeased  with  the  "  penury."  This  self- 


MICHAEL   ANGELO.  23 

denial  the  great  artist  practised  through  life  for 
his  not  always  grateful  or  appreciative  family.  He 
said  in  his  old  age,  "  Rich  as  I  am,  I  have  always 
lived  like  a  poor  man." 

Matters  had  greatly  changed  in  Florence.  Savon- 
arola and  his  two  principal  followers,  excommu- 
nicated by  Pope  Alexander  VI.,  because  they  had 
preached  against  the  corruptions  of  Rome,  calling 
his  court  the  Romish  Babylon,  had  been  burned  at 
the  stake. 

While  the  mob  had  assisted  at  the  death  of  the 
great  and  good  friar,  the  people  of  Florence  were 
sad  at  heart.  Michael  Angelo,  who  loved  him  and 
deeply  loved  republican  Florence,  was  sad  also,  and 
perhaps  thereby  wrought  all  the  more  earnestly, 
never  being  frivolous  either  in  thought  or  work. 

Upon  his  return  to  Florence,  Cardinal  Piccolo- 
mini,  afterwards  Pius  III.,  made  a  contract  with 
him  for  fifteen  statues  of  Carrara  marble  to  embel- 
lish the  family  chapel  in  the  cathedral  of  Siena. 
Three  years  were  allowed  for  this  work.  The  artist 
finished  but  four  statues,  Peter,  Paul,  Gregory,  and 
Pius,  because  of  other  labors  which  were  pressed 
upon  him. 

The  marble  Madonna  in  the  Church  of  Notre 
Dame  at  Bruges  was  carved  about  this  time. 
"  This,"  says  Grimm,  "  is  one  of  Michael  Angelo's 
finest  works.  It  is  life-size.  She  sits  there  en- 
veloped in  the  softest  drapery  ;  the  child  stands 
between  her  knees,  leaning  on  the  left  one,  the  foot 
of  which  rests  on  a  block  of  stone,  so  that  it  is 


24  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

raised  a  little  higher  than  the  right.  On  this  stone 
the  child  also  stands,  and  seems  about  to  step  down. 
His  mother  holds  him  back  with  her  left  hand, 
while  the  right  rests  on  her  lap  with  a  book.  She 
is  looking  straight  forward;  a  handkerchief  is 
placed  across  her  hair,  and  falls  softly,  on  both 
sides,  on  her  neck  and  shoulders.  In  her  counte- 
nance, in  her  look,  there  is  a  wonderful  majesty,  a 
queenly  gravity,  as  if  she  felt  the  thousand  pious 
glances  of  the  people  who  look  up  to  her  on  the 
altar." 

An  opportunity  now  presented  itself  for  the 
already  famous  sculptor  to  distinguish  himself  in 
his  own  city.  Years  before  a  marble  block,  eigh- 
teen feet  high,  had  been  brought  from  Carrara  to 
Florence,  from  which  the  wool-weavers'  guild  in- 
tended to  have  a  prophet  made  for  Santa  Maria  del 
Fiore.  One  sculptor  had  attempted  and  failed. 
Others  to  whom  it  was  offered  said  nothing  could 
be  done  with  the  one  block,  but  more  pieces  of 
marble  should  be  added. 

Michael  Angelo  was  willing  to  undertake  the 
making  of  a  statue.  He  was  allowed  two  years 
in  which  to  complete  it,  with  a  monthly  salary  of 
six  gold  florins.  His  only  preparation  for  the 
work  was  a  little  wax  model  which  he  moulded, 
now  in  the  Uffizi.  He  worked  untiringly,  so  that 
he  often  slept  with  his  clothes  on,  to  be  ready  for 
his  beloved  statue  as  soon  as  the  morning  dawned. 
He  had  shut  himself  away  from  the  public  gaze  by 
planks  and  masonry,  and  worked  alone,  not  intrust- 


MICHAEL  ANGELO.  25 

ing  a  stroke  to  other  hands.  He  felt  what  Emerson 
preached  years  later,  that  "  society  is  fatal."  The 
great  essayist  urged  that  while  we  may  keep  our 
hands  in  society  "  we  must  keep  our  head  in  soli- 
tude." Great  thoughts  are  not  born  usually  in  the 
whirl  of  social  life. 

Finally,  when  the  statue  was  finished  in  January, 
1504,  and  the  colossal  David  stood  unveiled  before 
the  people,  they  said :  "  It  is  as  great  a  miracle  as 
if  a  dead  body  had  been  raised  to  life."  Vasari 
says  Michael  Angelo  intended,  by  this  work,  to 
teach  the  Florentines  that  as  David  "  had  defended 
his  people  and  governed  justly,  so  they  who  were 
then  ruling  that  city  should  defend  it  with  courage 
and  govern  it  uprightly." 

The  statue  weighed  eighteen  thousand  pounds, 
and  required  forty  men  four  days  to  drag  it  by 
ropes  a  quarter  of  a  mile  to  the  place  where  it  was 
to  stand  in  the  Piazza  della  Signoria.  Notwith- 
standing that  the  praise  of  the  sculptor  was  on 
every  lip,  still  there  was  so  much  jealousy  among 
the  artists  that  some  of  their  followers  threw  stones 
at  the  statue  during  the  nights  when  it  was  being 
carried  to  the  Piazza,  and  eight  persons  were 
arrested  and  put  in  prison. 

Vasari  tells  a  story  which,  whether  true  or  false, 
illustrates  the  character  of  those  who  profess  much 
because  they  know  little.  "  When  the  statue  was 
set  up,  it  chanced  that  Soderini,  whom  it  greatly 
pleased,  came  to  look  at  it  while  Michael  Angelo 
was  retouching  it  at  certain  points,  and  told  the 


26  MICHAEL   ANGELO. 

artist  that  he  thought  the  nose  too  short.  Michael 
Angelo  perceived  that  Soderini  was  in  such  a  posi- 
tion beneath  the  figure  that  he  could  not  see  it 
conveniently ;  yet,  to  satisfy  him,  he  mounted  the 
scaffold  with  his  chisel  and  a  little  powder  gathered 
from  the  floor  in  his  hand,  when  striking  lightly 
with  the  chisel,  but  without  altering  the  nose,  he 
suffered  a  little  of  the  powder  to  fall,  and  then 
said  to  the  gonfaloniere,  who  stood  below,  '  I^ook  at 
it  now.' 

" '  I  like  it  better  now,'  was  the  reply ;  '  you 
have  given  it  life.'  Michael  Angelo  then  descended, 
not  without  compassion  for  those  who  desire  to  ap- 
pear good  judges  of  matters  whereof  they  know 
nothing."  But  the  artist  very  wisely  made  no  re- 
marks, and  thus  retained  the  friendship  of  Soderini. 
In  1873,  after  nearly  four  centuries,  this  famous 
statue  was  removed  to  the  Academy  of  Fine  Arts 
in  the  old  Monastery  of  St.  Mark,  lest  in  the  dis- 
tant future  it  should  be  injured  by  exposure. 

Work  now  poured  in  upon  Michael  Angelo.  In 
three  years  he  received  commissions  to  carve  thirty- 
seven  statues.  For  the  cathedral  of  Florence  he 
promised  colossal  statues  of  the  twelve  apostles, 
but  was  able  to  attempt  only  one,  St.  Matthew,  now 
in  the  Florentine  Academy.  For  Agnolo  Doni  he 
painted  a  Madonna,  now  in  the  Tribune  at  Florence. 
The  price  was  sixty  ducats,  but  the  parsimonious 
Agnolo  said  he  would  give  but  forty,  though  he 
knew  it'was  worth  more.  Michael  Angelo  at  once 
sent  a  messenger  demanding  a  hundred  ducats  or 


MICHAEL  ANGELO.  27 

the  picture,  but,  not  inclined  to  lose  so  valuable  a 
work  by  a  famous  artist,  Agnolo  gladly  offered  the 
sixty  which  he  at  first  refused  to  pay.  Offended 
by  such  penuriousness,  Michael  Angelo  demanded 
and  received  one  hundred  and  forty  ducats  ! 

In  1504,  Gonfaloniere  Soderini  desired  to  adorn 
the  great  Municipal  Hall  with  the  paintings  of  two 
masters,  Leonardo  da  Vinci  and  Michael  Angelo. 
The  latter  was  only  twenty-nine,  while  Da  Vinci 
was  over  fifty.  He  had  recently  come  from  Milan, 
where  he  had  been  painting  the  "  Last  Supper," 
which,  Grimm  says,  "  in  moments  of  admiration, 
forces  from  us  the  assertion  that  it  is  the  finest  and 
sublimest  composition  ever  produced  by  an  Italian 
master." 

And  now  with  this  "  first  painter  in  Italy  "  the 
first  sculptor,  Michael  Angelo,  was  asked  to  com- 
pete, and  he  dared  to  accept  the  offer. 

He  chose  for  his  subject  an  incident  of  the 
Pisan  war.  As  the  weather  was  very  warm,  the 
Florentines  had  laid  aside  their  armor  and  were 
bathing  in  the  Arno.  Sir  John  Hawkwood,  the 
commander  of  the  opposing  forces,  seized  this 
moment  to  make  the  attack.  The  bathers  rushed 
to  the  shore,  and  Michael  Angelo  has  depicted 
them  climbing  the  bank,  biickling  on  their  armor, 
and  with  all  haste  returning  the  assault. 

"  It  is  not  possible,"  says  Grimm,  "  to  describe 
all  the  separate  figures,  the  fore-shortenings,  the 
boldness  with  which  the  most  difficult  attitude  is 
ever  chosen,  or  the  art  with  which  it  is  depicted. 


28  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

This  cartoon  was  the  school  for  a  whole  generation 
of  artists,  who  made  their  first  studies  from  it." 

Da  Vinci's  painting  represented  a  scene  at  the 
battle  of  Anghiari,  where  the  Florentines  had  de- 
feated the  Milanese  in  1440.  "While  these  car- 
toons thus  hung  opposite  to  each  other,"  says 
Benvenuto  Cellini,  "  they  formed  the  school  of  the 
world."  Raphael,  Andrea  del  Sarto,  and  others 
made  studies  from  them.  Da  Vinci's  faded,  and 
Michael  Angelo's  was  cut  in  pieces  by  some  enemy. 

Before  the  artist  had  finished  his  painting  he  was 
summoned  to  Rome  by  Pope  Julius  II.,  the  great 
patron  of  art  and  literature,  who  desired  a  monu- 
ment for  himself  in  St.  Peter's.  The  mausoleum 
was  to  be  three  stories  high  ;  with  sixteen  statues 
of  the  captive  liberal  arts,  and  ten  statues  of  Victory 
treading  upon  conquered  provinces,  for  the  first 
story ;  the  sarcophagus  of  the  pope,  with  his 
statue  and  attendant  angels,  for  the  second;  and, 
above  all,  more  cherubs  and  apostles. 

"  It  will  cost  a  hundred  thousand  crowns,"  said 
the  artist. 

"  Let  it  cost  twice  that  sum,"  said  the  pope. 

At  once  Michael  Angelo  hastened  to  the  marble 
quarries  of  Carrara,  in  the  most  northern  part  of 
Tuscany,  where  he  remained  for  eight  months.  His 
task  was  a  difficult  one.  He  wrote  to  his  father 
after  he  had  gone  back  to  Rome,  "I  should  be 
quite  contented  here  if  only  my  marble  would  come. 
I  am  unhappy  about  it ;  for  not  for  two  days  only, 
but  as  long  as  I  have  been  here,  we  have  had  good 


MICHAEL   ANGELO,  29 

weather.  A  few  days  ago,  a  bark,  which  has  just 
arrived,  was  within  a  hair's-breadth  of  perishing. 
When  from  bad  weather  the  blocks  were  conveyed 
by  land,  the  river  overflowed,  and  placed  them 
under  water ;  so  that  up  to  this  day  I  have  been 
able  to  do  nothing.  I  must  endeavor  to  keep  the 
pope  in  good  humor  by  empty  words,  so  that  his 
good  temper  may  not  fail.  I  hope  all  may  soon 
be  in  order,  and  that  I  may  begin  my  work.  God 
grant  it ! " 

When  the  marble  reached  Rome,  the  people 
were  astonished,  for  there  seemed  enough  to  build 
a  temple,  instead  of  a  tomb.  The  sculptor  resided 
in  a  house  near  the  Vatican,  a  covered  way  being 
constructed  by  the  pope  between  the  atelier  and  the 
palace,  that  he  might  visit  the  artist  familiarly  and 
see  him  at  his  work. 

Meantime  an  envious  artist  was  whispering  in  the 
ears  of  Julius  that  it  was  an  evil  omen  to  build 
one's  monument  in  one's  lifetime,  and  that  he 
would  be  apt  to  die  early.  This  was  not  agreeable 
news,  and  when  Michael  Angelo  returned  from  a 
second  journey  to  Carrara  the  pope  refused  to 
advance  any  money,  and  even  gave  orders  that 
he  should  not  be  admitted  to  the  palace. 

With  commendable  pride  the  artist  left  Rome  at 
once,  and  hastened  to  Florence,  leaving  a  letter  in 
which  he  said,  "  Most  Holy  Father,  —  If  you  re- 
quire me  in  the  future,  you  can  seek  me  elsewhere 
than  in  Rome." 

The  proud  Julius  at  once  perceived  his  mistake. 


30  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

and  sent  a  messenger  to  bid  him  return,  on  pain  of 
his  displeasure.  But  Michael  Angelo  paid  no  atten- 
tion to  the  mandate.  Then  Julius  II.  applied  to 
Soderini  the  Gonfaloniere,  who  said  to  the  sculp- 
tor, "You  have  treated  the  pope  in  a  manner  such 
as  the  King  of  France  would  not  have  done  !  There 
must  be  an  end  of  trifling  with  him  now.  We  will 
not  for  your  sake  begin  a  war  with  the  pope,  and 
risk  the  safety  of  the  state." 

The  Sultan  Bajazet  II.,  who  had  heard  of  Michael 
Angelo's  fame,  now  urged  him  to  come  to  Turkey 
and  build  a  bridge  between  Constantinople  and 
Pera,  across  the  Golden  Horn.  Soderini  tried  to 
persuade  him  that  he  had  better  "  die  siding  with 
the  pope,  than  live  passing  over  to  the  Turk,"  and 
meantime  wrote  Julius  that  he  could  do  nothing 
with  him.  The  pope  saw  that  kindness  alone 
would  win  back  the  self-reliant  and  independent 
artist,  and  finally  prevailed  upon  him  to  return  to 
Rome. 

When  he  arrived,  Julius,  half  angry,  said,  "  You 
have  waited  thus  long,  it  seems,  till  we  should 
ourselves  come  to  seek  you." 

An  ecclesiastic  standing  near  officiously  begged 
his  Holiness  not  to  be  too  severe  with  Michael 
Angelo,  as  he  was  a  man  of  no  education,  and  as 
artists  did  not  know  how  to  behave  except  where 
their  own  art  was  concerned. 

The  pope  was  now  fully  angry,  and  exclaimed, 
"  Do  you  venture  to  say  things  to  this  man  which 
I  would  not  have  said  to  him  myself  ?  You  are 


MICHAEL  ANGELO.  31 

yourself  a  man  of  no  education,  a  miserable  fellow, 
and  this  he  is  not.  Leave  our  presence."  The 
man  was  borne  out  of  the  hall,  nearly  fainting. 

Michael  Angelo  was  at  once  commissioned  to 
make  a  bronze  statue  of  Julius,  fourteen  feet  high, 
to  be  placed  before  the  Church  of  St.  Petronio,  in 
Bologna.  When  the  pope  wished  to  know  the  cost, 
the  artist  told  him  he  thought  it  would  be  about 
three  thousand  ducats,  but  was  not  sure  whether 
the  cast  would  succeed. 

"  You  will  mould  it  until  it  succeeds,"  said  the 
pope,  "  and  you  shall  be  paid  as  much  as  you 
require." 

When  the  clay  model  was  ready  for  the  pope  to 
look  at,  he  was  asked  if  he  would  like  to  be  repre- 
sented holding  a  book  in  his  left  hand. 

"Give  me  a  sword!"  he  exclaimed;  "I  am  no 
scholar.  And  what  does  the  raised  right  hand 
denote  ?  Am  I  dispensing  a  curse,  or  a  blessing  ?  " 

"  You  are  advising  the  people  of  Bologna  to  be 
wise,"  replied  Michael  Angelo. 

The  bronze  statue  was  a  difficult  work.  The  first 
cast  was  unsuccessful.  The  sculptor  wrote  home, 
"  If  I  had  a  second  time  to  undertake  this  intense 
work,  which  gives  me  no  rest  night  or  day,  I 
scarcely  think  I  should  be  able  to  accomplish  it. 
I  am  convinced  that  no  one  else  upon  whom  this 
immense  task  might  have  been  imposed  would 
have  persevered.  My  belief  is  that  your  prayers 
have  kept  me  sustained  and  well.  For  no  one  in 
Bologna,  not  even  after  the  successful  issue  of  the 


82  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

cast,  thought  that  I  should  finish  the  statue  satis- 
factorily ;  before  that  no  one  thought  that  the  cast 
would  succeed." 

After  the  statue  was  completed,  Michael  Angelo, 
at  the  earnest  request  of  the  helpless  Buonarotti 
family,  went  back  to  Florence,  and  carried  there 
what  he  had  earned.  Grimm  naively  remarks,  "  I 
could  almost  suppose  that  it  had  been  designed  by 
Fate,  as  may  be  often  observed  in  similar  cases, 
to  compensate  for  Michael  Angelo's  extraordinary 
gifts  by  a  corresponding  lack  of  them  in  the  fam- 
ily." The  case  of  Galileo,  struggling  through  life 
for  helpless  relatives,  is  similar  to  that  of  Michael 
Angelo. 

He  was  soon  summoned  again  to  Rome,  not  to 
complete  the  monument,  as  he  had  hoped,  but  to 
paint  the  ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel.  He  hesi- 
tated to  undertake  so  important  a  work  in  painting, 
and  begged  that  Raphael  be  chosen ;  but  the  pope 
would  not  consent. 

He  therefore  began  to  make  designs,  and  sent 
for  some  of  his  boyhood  friends  to  aid  him,  Gra- 
nacci  and  others.  His  method  was  to  make  the  first 
draught  in  red  or  black  chalk  on  a  very  small  scale. 
From  this  he  marked  out  the  full-sized  cartoons  or 
working  drawings,  nailing  these  to  the  wall,  and 
cutting  away  the  paper  around  the  figures.  He 
soon  found  that  his  assistants  were  a  hinderance 
rather  than  a  help,  and,  unable  to  wound  their  feel- 
ings by  telling  them,  he  shut  up  the  chapel  and 
went  away.  They  understood  it,  and,  if  some  were 


MICHAEL  ANGELO.  33 

hurt  or  offended,  Granacci  was  not,  but  always  re- 
mained an  earnest  friend. 

Michael  Angelo  now  worked  alone,  seeing  nobody 
except  his  color-grinder  and  the  pope.  His  eyes 
became  so  injured  by  holding  his  head  back  for 
his  work  that  for  a  long  period  afterwards  he  could 
read  only  by  keeping  the  page  above  his  head. 
After  he  had  painted  for  some  time  the  walls 
began  to  mould,  and,  discouraged,  he  hastened  to 
the  pope,  saying,  "  I  told  your  Holiness,  from  the 
first,  that  painting  was  not  my  profession ;  all  that 
I  have  painted  is  destroyed.  If  you  do  not  believe 
it,  send  and  let  some  one  else  see."  It  was  soon 
found  that  he  had  made  the  plaster  too  wet,  but 
that  no  harm  would  result. 

He  worked  now  so  constantly  that  he  scarcely 
took  time  to  eat  or  sleep,  and  became  ill  from  over- 
exertion.  In  the  midst  of  his  labors  and  illness, 
he  writes  his  father,  "  Do  not  lose  courage,  and 
let  not  a  trace  of  inward  sadness  gain  ground  in 
you ;  for,  if  you  have  lost  your  property,  life  is 
not  lost,  and  I  will  do  more  for  you  than  all  you 
have  lost.  Still,  do  not  rely  upon  it ;  it  is  always 
a  doubtful  matter.  Use,  rather,  all  possible  pre- 
caution ;  and  thank  God  that,  as  this  chastisement 
of  heaven  was  to  come,  it  came  at  a  time  when  you 
could  better  extricate  yourself  from  it  than  you 
would  perhaps  have  been  earlier  able  to  do.  Take 
care  of  your  health,  and  rather  part  with  all  your 
possessions  than  impose  privations  on  yourself.  For 
it  is  of  greater  consequence  to  me  that  you-  should 


34  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

remain  alive,  although  a  poor  man,  than  that  you 
should  perish  for  the  sake  of  all  the  money  in  the 
world.  Your  MICHAEL  ANGELO." 

He  writes  also  to  his  younger  brother,  Giovanni 
Simone,  who  appears  to  have  spent  much  and 
earned  little  :  "  If  you  will  take  care  to  do  well, 
and  to  honor  and  revere  your  father,  I  will  aid  you 
like  the  others  and  will  soon  establish  you  in  a 
good  shop.  ...  I  have  gone  about  through  all 
Italy  for  twelve  years,  leading  a  dog's  life ;  bear- 
ing all  manner  of  insults,  enduring  all  sorts  of 
drudgery,  lacerating  my  body  with  many  toils, 
placing  my  life  itself  under  a  thousand  perils, 
solely  to  aid  my  family  ;  and  now  that  I  have  com- 
menced to  raise  it  up  a  little,  thou  alone  wishest  to 
do  that  which  shall  confound  and  ruin  in  an  hour 
everything  that  I  have  done  in  so  many  years  and 
with  so  many  fatigues." 

Meantime  the  pope,  as  eager  as  a  child  to  see  the 
painting  which  he  knew  would  help  to  immortalize 
himself,  urged  the  artist  to  work  faster,  and  con- 
tinually asked  when  it  would  be  finished  and  the 
scaffolding  taken  down.  "  When  I  can,  holy  fath- 
er," replied  the  artist.  "When  I  can  —  when  I 
can  !  I'll  make  thee  finish  it,  and  quickly,  as  thou 
shalt  see  !  "  And  he  struck  Michael  Angelo  with 
the  staff  which  he  held  in  his  hand. 

The  sculptor  at  once  left  the  painting  and  started 
for  Florence.  But  Julius  sent  after  him,  and  gave 
him  five  hundred  crowns  to  pacify  him.  It  cer- 


MICHAEL  ANGELO.  35 

tainly  would  have  been  a  pecuniary  saving  to  the 
pontiff  not  to  have  given  way  to  his  temper  and 
used  his  staff ! 

When  half  the  ceiling  was  completed,  at  Julius's 
request  the  scaffolding  was  removed,  and  all  Rome 
crowded  to  see  the  wonderful  work  on  All  Saints' 
Day,  1509. 

Kugler  says,  "  The  ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel 
contains  the  most  perfect  works  done  by  Michael 
Angelo  in  his  long  and  active  life.  Here  his  great 
spirit  appears  in  its  noblest  dignity,  in  its  highest 
purity  ;  here  the  attention  is  not  disturbed  by  that 
arbitrary  display  to  which  his  great  power  not  un- 
frequently  seduced  him  in  other  works." 

The  paintings  represent  God  the  Father  separat- 
ing the  light  from  the  darkness  ;  he  creates  the 
sun  and  moon ;  surrounded  by  angels,  he  commands 
the  waters  to  bring  forth  all  kinds  of  animals 
which  can  live  in  the  sea ;  he  breathes  into  man 
the  breath  of  life  ;  he  forms  Eve ;  both  are  driven 
from  the  garden ;  Abel  is  sacrificed ;  the  flood 
comes ;  Noah  and  his  family  are  saved  in  the  ark. 

Grimm  thus  describes  a  portion  of  this  marvel- 
lous painting:  "Adam  lies  on  a  dark  mountain 
summit.  His  formation  is  finished ;  nothing  more 
remains  than  that  he  should  rise,  and  feel  for  the 
first  time  what  life  and  waking  are.  It  is  as  if  the 
first  emotion  of  his  new  condition  thrilled  through 
him  ;  as  if,  still  lying  almost  in  a  dream,  he  divined 
what  was  passing  around  him.  God  hovers  slowly 
down  over  him  from,  above,  softly  descending  like 


36  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

an  evening  cloud.  Angel  forms  surround  him  on 
all  sides,  closely  thronging  round  him  as  if  they 
were  bearing  him  ;  and  his  mantle,  as  if  swelled 
out  by  a  full  gust  of  wind,  forms  a  flowing  tent 
around  them  all.  These  angels  are  children  in 
appearance,  with  lovely  countenances :  some  sup- 
port him  from  below,  others  look  over  his  shoulder. 
More  wonderful  still  than  the  mantle  which  em- 
braces them  all  is  the  garment  which  covers  the  form 
of  God  himself,  violet-gray  drapery,  transparent  as 
if  woven  out  of  clouds,  closely  surrounding  the 
mighty  and  beautiful  form  with  its  small  folds, 
covering  him  entirely  down  to  the  knees,  and  yet 
allowing  every  muscle  to  appear  through  it.  I 
have  never  seen  the  portrait  of  a  human  body 
which  equalled  the  beauty  of  this.  Cornelius 
justly  said  that  since  Phidias  its  like  has  not  been 
formed.  .  .  . 

"God  commands  and  Adam  obeys.  He  signs 
him  to  rise,  and  Adam  seizes  his  hand  to  raise  him- 
self up.  Like  an  electric  touch,  God  sends  a  spark 
of  his  own  spirit,  with  life-giving  power,  into 
Adam's  body.  Adam  lay  there  powerless;  the 
spirit  moves  within  him ;  he  raises  his  head  to  his 
Creator  as  a  flower  turns  to  the  sun,  impelled  by 
that  wonderful  power  which  is  neither  will  nor 
obedience.  .  .  . 

"  The  next  picture  is  the  creation  of  Eve.  Adam 
lies  on  his  right  side  sunk  in  sleep,  and  completely 
turned  to  the  spectator.  One  arm  falls  languidly 
on  his  breast,  and  the  back  of  the  fingers  rest  upon 


MICHAEL  ANGELO.  37 

the  ground.  .  .  .  Eve  stands  behind  Adam ;  we  see 
her  completely  in  profile.  .  .  .  We  feel  tempted  to 
say  she  is  the  most  beautiful  picture  of  a  woman 
which  art  has  produced.  .  .  .  She  is  looking 
straight  forward ;  and  we  feel  that  she  breathes  for 
the  first  time  :  but  it  seems  as  if  life  had  not  yet 
flowed  through  her  veins,  as  if  the  adoring,  God- 
turned  position  was  not  only  the  first  dream-like 
movement,  but  as  if  the  Creator  himself  had 
formed  her,  and  called  her  from  her  slumber,  in  this 
position." 

The  pope  was  anxious  to  have  the  scaffolding 
again  erected,  and  the  figures  touched  with  gold. 
"  It  is  unnecessary,"  said  Michael  Angelo.  "  But  it 
looks  poor,"  said  Julius,  who  should  have  thought 
of  this  before  he  insisted  on  its  being  shown  to 
the  public.  "They  are  poor  people  whom  I  have 
painted  there,"  said  the  artist ;  "  they  did  not  wear 
gold  on  their  garments,"  and  Julius  was  pacified. 

Kaphael  was  now  working  near  Michael  Angelo 
in  the  Vatican  palace,  but  it  is  probable  that  they 
did  not  become  friends,  though  each  admired  the 
genius  of  the  other,  and  Raphael  "  thanked  God 
that  he  had  been  born  in  the  same  century  as 
Michael  Angelo."  But  there  was  rivalry  always 
between  the  followers  of  the  two  masters. 

Raphael  was  gentle,  affectionate,  sympathetic, 
intense,  lovable ;  Michael  Angelo  was  tender  at 
heart  but  austere  in  manner,  doing  only  great 
works,  and  thinking  great  thoughts.  "Raphael," 
says  Grimm,  "had  one  excellence,  which,  perhaps, 


38  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

as  long  as  the  world  stands,  no  other  artist  has 
possessed  to  such  an  extent,  —  his  works  suit  more 
closely  the  average  human  mind.  There  is  no  line 
drawn  above  or  below.  Michael  Angelo's  ideals 
belong  to  a  nobler,  stronger  generation,  as  if  he 
had  had  demigods  in  his  mind,  just  as  Schiller's 
poetical  forms,  in  another  manner,  often  outstep 
the  measure  of  the  ordinary  mortal.  .  .  .  Leonardo 
sought  for  the  fantastic,  Michael  Angelo  for  the 
difficult  and  the  great ;  both  labored  with  intense 
accuracy,  both  went  their  own  ways,  and  impressed 
the  stamp  of  nature  on  their  works.  Raphael  pro- 
ceeded quietly,  often  advancing  in  the  completion 
only  to  a  certain  point,  at  which  he  rested,  appar- 
ently not  jealous  at  being  confounded  with  others. 
He  paints  at  first  in  the  fashion  of  Perugino,  and 
his  portraits  are  in  the  delicate  manner  of  Leonardo: 
a  certain  grace  is  almost  the  only  characteristic  of 
his  works.  At  length  he  finds  himself  in  Rome, 
opposed  alone  to  Michael  Angelo  ;  then  only  does 
the  true  source  of  power  burst  out  within  him ;  and 
he  produces  works  which  stand  so  high  above  all 
his  former  ones  that  the  air  of  Rome  which  he 
breathed  seemed  to  have  worked  wonders  in  him. 
.  .  .  Raphael  served  the  court  with  agreeable  obse- 
quiousness ;  but  under  the  outward  veil  of  this 
subservient  friendliness  there  dwelt  a  keen  and 
royal  mind,  which  bent  before  no  power,  and  went 
its  own  way  solitarily,  like  the  soul  of  Michael 
Angelo." 

The   Sistine   Chapel  was  finished,  probably,  in 


MICHAEL   ANGELO.  39 

1512,  and  Michael  Angelo  returned  with  ardor  to  the 
Julius  monument,  which,  however,  had  been  reduced 
in  plan  from  the  original.  He  worked  on  the  central 
figure,  Moses,  with  great  joy,  believing  it  would  be 
his  masterpiece.  "This  statue,"  says  Charles 
Christopher  Black  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge, 
"takes  rank  with  the  Prometheus  of  ^Eschylus, 
with  the  highest  and  noblest  conceptions  of  Dante 
and  Shakespeare." 

"  He  sits  there,"  says  Grimm,  "  as  if  on  the  point 
of  starting  up,  his  head  proudly  raised ;  his  hand, 
under  the  arm  of  which  rest  the  tables  of  the  law, 
is  thrust  in  his  beard,  which  falls  in  heavy,  waving 
locks  on  his  breast ;  his  nostrils  are  wide  and  ex- 
panding, and  his  mouth  looks  as  if  the  words  were 
trembling  on  his  lips.  Such  a  man  could  well  sub- 
due a  rebellious  people,  drawing  them  after  him, 
like  a  moving  magnet,  through  the  wilderness  and 
through  the  sea  itself. 

"What  need  we  information,  letters,  suppositi- 
tious records,  respecting  Michael  Angelo,  when  we 
possess  such  a  work,  every  line  of  which  is  a  tran- 
script of  his  mind  ?  " 

Emerson  truly  said,  "Nothing  great  was  ever 
achieved  without  enthusiasm."  No  work  either  in 
literature  or  art  can  ever  be  great,  or  live  beyond  a 
decade  or  two,  unless  the  author  or  artist  puts  him- 
self into  it,  —  his  own  glowing  heart  and  earnest 
purpose.  Mr.  Black  well  says,  "  The  highest  aim 
of  art  is  not  to  produce  a  counterpart  of  nature, 
but  to  convey  by  a  judicious  employment  of  natural 


40  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

forms,  and  a  wise  deviation  where  required,  the 
sentiment  which  it  is  the  artist's  object  to  in- 
culcate." 

The  statues  of  the  two  chained  youths,  or  "  Fet- 
tered Slaves,"  which  were  too  large  after  the 
monument  had  been  reduced  in  size,  were  sent  to 
France.  The  "  Dying  Slave  "  will  be  recalled  by  all 
who  have  visited  the  Renaissance  sculptures  of  the 
Louvre.  Griinm  says,  "  Perhaps  the  tender  beauty 
of  this  dying  youth  is  more  penetrating  than  the 
power  of  Moses.  .  .  .  When  I  say  that  to  me  it  is 
the  most  elevated  piece  of  statuary  that  I  know,  I 
do  so  remembering  the  masterpieces  of  ancient  art. 
Man  is  always  limited.  It  is  impossible,  in  the 
most  comprehensive  life,  to  have  had  everything 
before  our  eyes,  and  to  have  contemplated  that 
which  we  have  seen,  in  the  best  and  worthiest  state 
of  feeling.  ...  I  ask  myself  what  work  of  sculp- 
ture first  comes  to  mind  if  I  am  to  name  the  best, 
and  at  once  the  answer  is  ready,  —  the  dying 
youth  of  Michael  Angelo.  .  .  „  What  work  of  any 
ancient  master  do  we,  however,  know  or  possess 
which  touches  us  so  nearly  as  this,  —  which  takes 
hold  of  our  soul  so  completely  as  this  exemplifica- 
tion of  the  highest  and  last  human  conflict  does, 
in  a  being  just  developing  ?  The  last  moment, 
between  life  and  immortality,  —  the  terror  at  once 
of  departing  and  arriving,  —  the  enfeebling  of  the 
powerful  youthful  limbs,  which,  like  an  empty 
and  magnificent  coat  of  mail,  are  cast  off  by  the 
soul  as  she  rises,  and  which,  still  losing  what 


MICHAEL   ANGELO.  41 

they  contained,  seem  nevertheless  completely  to 
veil  it ! 

"  He  is  chained  to  the  pillar  by  a  band  running 
across  the  breast,  below  the  shoulders  ;  his  powers 
are  just  ebbing ;  the  band  sustains  him  ;  he  almost 
hangs  in  it ;  one  shoulder  is  forced  up,  and  towards 
this  the  head  inclines  as  it  falls  backwards.  The 
hand  of  this  arm  is  placed  on  his  breast ;  the  other 
is  raised  in  a  bent  position  behind  the  head,  in 
such  an  attitude  as  in  sleep  we  make  a  pillow  of  an 
arm,  and  it  is  fettered  at  the  wrist.  The  knees, 
drawn  closely  together,  have  no  more  firmness ;  no 
muscle  is  stretched ;  all  has  returned  to  that  repose 
which  indicates  death." 

A  year  after  the  Sistine  Chapel  was  finished, 
Pope  Julius  died,  and  was  succeeded  by  Leo  X.,  at 
whose  side  the  artist  had  sat  when  a  boy,  in  the 
palace  of  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent.  He  was  a 
man  of  taste  and  culture,  and  desired  to  build  a 
monument  to  himself  in  his  native  Florence.  He 
therefore  commissioned  Michael  Angelo  to  build  a 
beautiful,  sculptured  fa£ade  for  the  Church  of  San 
Lorenzo,  erected  by  Cosmo  de'  Medici  from  designs 
of  Brunelleschi. 

For  nearly  four  years  the  sculptor  remained 
among  the  mountains  of  Carrara,  and  the  adja- 
cent ones  of  Serravezza,  taking  out  heavy  blocks 
of  marble,  making  roads  over  the  steep  rocks  for 
their  transportation,  and  studying  architecture  with 
great  assiduity. 

Meantime,  Michael  Angelo  writes  to  his  "Dearest 


42  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

father :  Take  care  of  your  health,  and  see  whether 
you  are  not  still  able  to  get  your  daily  bread ;  and, 
with  God's  help,  get  through,  poor  but  honest.  I 
do  not  do  otherwise  ;  I  live  shabbily,  and  care  not 
for  outward  honor ;  a  thousand  cares  and  works 
burden  me ;  and  thus  I  have  now  gone  on  for  fif- 
teen years  without  having  a  happy,  quiet  hour. 
And  I  have  done  all  for  the  sake  of  supporting  you, 
which  you  have  never  acknowledged  or  believed. 
God  forgive  us  all !  I  am  ready  to  go  on  working 
as  long  as  I  can,  and  as  long  as  my  powers  hold  out." 

Later  he  hears  that  his  father  is  ill,  and  writes 
anxiously  to  his  brother,  '(  Take  care,  also,  that 
nothing  is  lacking  in  his  nursing ;  for  I  have 
exerted  myself  for  him  alone,  in  order  that  to  the 
last  he  might  have  a  life  free  of  care.  Your  wife, 
too,  must  take  care  of  him,  and  attend  to  his  neces- 
sities ;  and  all  of  you,  if  necessary,  must  spare  no 
expenses,  even  if  it  should  cost  us  everything." 

Finally  the  facade  of  San  Lorenzo  was  abandoned 
by  Leo  X.,  who  decided  to  erect  a  new  chapel  north 
of  the  church,  for  the  reception  of  monuments  to 
his  brother  and  nephew,  Giuliano  and  Lorenzo. 
The  artist  built  the  new  sacristy,  bringing  thither 
three  hundred  cart-loads  of  marble  from  Carrara. 

Leo  died  in  1521,  and  was  succeeded  by  Adrian, 
who  lived  only  a  year,  and  then  by  Clement  VII., 
the  cousin  of  Leo  X.  He  was  a  warm  friend  of 
Michael  Angelo,  and  so  desirous  was  he  of  keeping 
the  artist  in  his  service  that  he  endeavored  to  have 
him  take  holy  orders,  but  the  offer  was  refused. 


MICHAEL  ANGELO.  43 

Like  the  other  popes  he  wished  to  immortalize 
his  name,  and  therefore  gave  the  artist  the  building 
of  the  Laurentian  library,  adjoining  San  Lorenzo. 

Meantime  the  relatives  of  Pope  Julius  were 
justly  angry  because  his  tomb  was  not  completed, 
and  threatened  to  imprison  the  sculptor  for  not  ful- 
filling his  contract.  All  art  work  was  soon  discon- 
tinued through  the  sacking  of  Rome  by  Charles  V. 
of  Germany,  in  1527.  Upon  the  inlaid  marble 
floor  of  the  Vatican  the  German  soldiers  lighted 
their  fires,  and  with  valuable  documents  made 
beds  for  their  horses  which  stood  in  the  Sistine 
Chapel.  Koine  had  ninety  thousand  inhabitants 
under  Leo  X.  A  year  after  the  conquest,  she  had 
scarcely  a  third  of  that  number. 

The  Florentines  now  expelled  the  Medici,  re- 
vived the  republic,  and  appointed  Michael  Angelo 
to  superintend  the  fortifications  and  defences  of 
Florence.  He  had  always  loved  liberty.  Now  he 
loaned  his  funds  freely  to  the  republic,  fortified 
the  hill  of  San  Miniato,  was  sent  to  Ferrara  by  the 
government  to  study  its  fortifications,  and  also  on 
an  embassy  to  Venice.  He  showed  himself  as  skil- 
ful in  engineering  as  in  architecture  or  painting. 

With  quick  intuition  he  soon  perceived  that 
Malatesta  Baglioni,  the  captain-general  of  the 
republic,  was  a  traitor,  and,  warned  that  he  himself 
was  to  be  assassinated,  he  fled  to  Venice. 

Here,  in  exile,  he  probably  wrote  his  beautiful 
sonnets  to  Dante,  whose  works  he  so  ardently 

admired. 

* 


44  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

"  How  shall  we  speak  of  him  ?  for  our  blind  eyes 
Are  all  unequal  to  his  dazzling  rays. 
Easier  it  is  to  blame  bis  enemies, 
Tban  for  the  tongue  to  tell  his  highest  praise. 
For  us  be  did  explore  the  realms  of  woe; 
And,  at  his  coming,  did  high  heaven  expand 
Her  lofty  gates,  to  whom  bis  native  land 
Refused  to  open  hers.     Yet  shall  thou  know, 
Ungrateful  city,  in  thine  own  despite, 
That  thou  hast  fostered  best  thy  Dante's  fame; 
For  virtue,  when  oppressed,  appears  more  bright. 
And  brighter,  therefore,  shall  bis  glory  be, 
Suffering  of  all  mankind  most  wrongfully, 
Since  in  the  world  there  lives  no  greater  name." 

SOUTIIEY. 

Venice  offered  Michael  Angelo  all  possible  in- 
ducements to  remain,  and  Francis  I.  of  France 
eagerly  besought  the  artist  to  live  at  his  court ; 
but  his  heart  was  in  Florence,  and  thither  he  re- 
turned, and  bravely  helped  to  defend  her  to  the 
last.  When  the  Medici  were  again  triumphant,  and 
freedom  was  dead,  the  artist  being  too  great  a  man 
to  imprison  or  kill,  he  was  publicly  pardoned  by 
the  pope,  and  went  sadly  to  his  work  on  the  monu- 
ments in  the  Medici  Chapel  of  San  Lorenzo. 

Here  he  labored  day  and  night,  eating  little  and 
sleeping  less,  ill  in  body  and  suffering  deeply  in 
heart  for  his  beloved  Florence ;  working  into  the 
speaking  stone  his  sorrow  and  his  hopes.  In  1534 
the  Medici  Chapel  was  completed,  —  a  massive  piece 
of  architecture,  executed  at  an  almost  fabulous 
expense.  On  one  side  is  the  tomb  of  Giuliano  de' 
Medici,  the  son  of  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent,  with 


MICHAEL  ANGELO.  45 

his  statue  in  a  sitting  posture,  holding  in  his  hand 
the  baton  of  a  general.  Beneath  him,  over  the 
tomb,  are  the  statues  Day  and  Night.  Opposite  is 
the  tomb  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  the  grandson  of 
Lorenzo  the  Magnificent,  and  the  father  of  Cathe- 
rine de'  Medici.  It  is  clad  in  armor,  with  a  helmet 
overshadowing  the  grave  features.  The  Italians 
call  it  II  Pensiero  ("  Thought,"  or  "  Meditation  "). 

Hawthorne  said  of  this  statue,  "No  such  gran- 
deur and  majesty  have  elsewhere  been  put  into 
human  shape.  It  is  all  a  miracle  —  the  deep  re- 
pose, and  the  deep  life  within  it.  It  is  as  much  a 
miracle  to  have  achieved  this  as  to  make  a  statue 
that  would  rise  up  and  walk.  .  .  .  This  statue  is 
one  of  the  things  which  I  look  at  with  highest  en- 
joyment, but  also  with  grief  and  impatience, 
because  I  feel  that  I  do  not  come  at  all  to  that 
which  it  involves,  and  that  by  and  by  I  must  go 
away  and  leave  it  forever.  How  wonderful !  To 
take  a  block  of  marble,  and  convert  it  wholly  into 
thought,  and  to  do  it  through  all  the  obstructions 
and  impediments  of  drapery." 

Some  authorities  believe  that  the  statue  usually 
called  Lorenzo  was  intended  for  Giuliano.  Michael 
Angelo  himself,  when  remonstrated  with  because 
the  portraits  were  not  correct  likenesses,  replied 
that  he  "  did  not  suppose  people  a  hundred  years 
later  would  care  much  how  the  dukes  looked ! " 

Under  this  statue  are  Dawn  and  Twilight.  Kus- 
kin  calls  these,  with  Night  and  Day,  "  Four  inef- 
fable types,  not  of  darkness  nor  of  day  —  not  oi 


46  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

morning  nor  evening,  but  of  the  departure  and  the 
resurrection,  the  twilight  and  the  dawn,  of  the 
souls  of  men." 

Day  is  a  gigantic  figure  of  a  man ;  Night,  of  a 
woman  in  a  profound  sleep,  with  her  foot  resting 
on  a  thick  bundle  of  poppy-heads.  When  this 
statue  was  exhibited  for  the  first  time,  Giovanni 
Batista  Strozzi  wrote  a  verse,  and  attached  it  to 
the  marble  :  — 

"  Carved  by  an  Angel,  in  this  marble  white 
Sweetly  reposing,  lo,  the  Goddess  Night! 
Calmly  she  sleeps,  and  so  must  living  be: 
Awake  her  gently;  she  will  speak  to  thee." 

To  which  Michael  Angelo  wrote  the  following 
reply:  — 

"  Grateful  is  sleep,  whilst  wrong  and  shame  survive 
More  grateful  still  in  senseless  stone  to  live; 
Gladly  both  sight  and  hearing  I  forego; 
Oh,  then,  awake  me  not.    Hush  —  whisper  low." 

Of  Day,  Mrs.  Oliphant  says,  in  her  "  Makers  of 
Florence,"  "Bursting  herculean  from  his  strong 
prison,  half  heroic,  nothing  known  of  him  but  the 
great  brow  and  resolute  eyes,  and  those  vast  limbs, 
which  were  not  yet  free  from  the  cohesion  of  the 
marble,  though  alive  with  such  strain  of  action." 

Twilight  is  the  strong  figure  of  a  man.  Dawn, 
or  Morning,  Grimm  considers  "  the  most  beautiful 
of  all.  She  is  lying  outstretched  on  the  gently 
sloping  side  of  the  lid  of  the  sarcophagus.  Not, 
however,  resting,  but  as  if,  still  in  sleep,  she  had 


MICHAEL   ANGELO.  47 

moved  towards  us  ;  so  that,  while  the  upper  part  of 
the  back  is  still  reclining,  the  lower  part  is  turned 
to  us.  She  is  lying  on  her  right  side ;  the  leg  next 
us,  only  feebly  bent  at  the  knee  is  stretching  itself 
out ;  the  other  is  half  drawn  up,  and  with  the 
knee  bent  out,  as  if  it  was  stepping  forward  and 
seeking  for  sure  footing.  An  entire  symphony  of 
Beethoven  lies  in  this  statue." 

In  1534,  the  same  year  in  which  the  Medici 
statues  were  finished,  Michael  Angelo's  father 
died,  at  the  age  of  ninety.  The  artist  gave  him 
a  costly  burial,  and  wrote  a  pathetic  poem  in  his 
memory.  The  beloved  brother,  Buonarotto,  had 
died  in  Michael  Angelo's  arms.  His  young  mother 
had  died  years  before  when  he  went  to  Home, 
scarcely  more  than  a  boy. 

"Already  had  I  wept  and  sighed  so  much, 
I  thought  all  grief  forever  at  an  end, 
Exhaled  in  sighs,  shed  forth  in  bitter  tears. 

For  thee,  my  brother,  and  for  him  who  was 
Of  thee  and  me  the  parent,  love  inspires 
A  grief  unspeakable  to  vex  and  sting. 

Full  ninety  times  the  sun  had  bathed  his  face 
In  the  wet  ocean,  ending  his  annual  round 
Ere  thou  attaiuedst  to  the  Peace  Divine. 


There,  where  (to  Him  be  thanks!)  I  think  thee  now, 

And  hope  to  see  again  if  my  cold  heart 

Be  raised  from  earthly  mire  to  where  thou  art. 


48  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

And  if  'twixt  sire  and  son  the  noblest  love 
Still  grows  in  Heaven,  where  every  virtue  grows, 
While  giving  glory  to  my  heavenly  Lord, 
I  shajl  rejoice  with  thee  in  Heaven's  bliss." 

Clement  was  now  dead,  and  Paul  III.  was  in 
the  papal  chair.  He,  like  the  others,  desired  that 
Michael  Angelo  should  do  some  great  work  to 
immortalize  his  reign.  Clement  had  wished  the 
artist  to  paint  the  "  Last  Judgment "  in  the  Sis- 
tine  Chapel,  and  when  Paul  urged  the  carrying-out 
of  this  plan,  Michael  Angelo  excused  himself  on 
account  of  the  contract  with  the  heirs  of  Julius  II. 

"  It  is  now  thirty  years,"  cried  Paul  III.,  "  that 
I  have  had  this  desire ;  and,  now  that  I  am  pope, 
shall  I  not  be  able  to  effect  it  ?  Where  is  the  con- 
tract, that  I  may  tear  it  ?  " 

One  day  he  appeared  in  the  studio  of  the  painter, 
bringing  with  him  eight  cardinals,  all  of  whom 
wished  to  see  the  designs  for  the  "  Last  Judgment." 

The  artist  was  still  at  work  on  Moses.  "  This 
one  statue  is  sufficient  to  be  a  worthy  monument 
to  Pope  Julius,"  said  the  cardinal  of  Mantua. 
Paul  III.  refused  to  release  Michael  Angelo,  and 
he  began  work  on  the  Sistine  Chapel. 

The  painting  was  not  completed  until  nearly 
eight  years  had  passed.  There  are  three  hundred 
figures  and  heads  in  this  vast  fresco.  Says  M.  F. 
Sweetser,  in  his  concise  and  excellent  life  of 
Michael  Angelo,  "About  Christ  are  many  re- 
nowned saints,  —  the  Madonna,  gazing  mildly  at 
the  blessed  and  redeemed  souls ;  Adam  and  Eve, 


MICHAEL  ANGELO.  49 

curiously  regarding  the  Judge ;  and  a  group  of  plead- 
ing apostles,  bearing  their  emblems.  These  are 
surrounded  by  a  vast  throng  of  saints  and  martyrs, 
safe  in  Heaven,  all  of  whom  exemplify  the  saying 
that  '  Michael  Angelo  nowhere  admits,  either  into 
heaven  or  hell,  any  but  the  physically  powerful.' 
Below  the  Judge  are  four  angels  blowing  trumpets 
towards  the  four  quarters  of  the  universe,  and  four 
others  holding  the  books  by  which  the  dead  are  to 
be  judged.  Under  these  the  land  and  sea  are  giv- 
ing up  their  dead.  ...  As  a  work  of  art,  the  Last 
Judgment  was  one  of  the  grandest  productions  of 
the  famous  art-century." 

Biagio  da  Cesena,  the  pope's  master  of  ceremo- 
nies, complained  that  so  many  naked  figures  made 
the  painting  more  appropriate  for  bath-rooms  and 
stables  than  for  a  chapel.  What  was  the  surprise 
of  Biagio,  when  the  painting  was  thrown  open  to 
the  public,  to  find  that  the  infernal  judge  Minos, 
with  ass's  ears,  was  his  own  portrait !  He  begged 
the  pope  to  punish  the  artist ;  but  Paul  replied,  "  If 
the  painter  had  placed  thee  in  purgatory,  I  should 
have  used  every  effort  to  help  thee  ;  but  since  he 
has  put  thee  in  hell,  it  is  useless  to  have  recourse 
to  me,  because  ex  infernis  nulla  est  redemptio" 

Paul  IV.  later  complained  that  the  figures  were 
shamefully  nude,  and  desired  to  have  them  covered. 
"Tell  his  Holiness,"  said  Michael  Angelo,  "that 
this  is  a  mere  trifle,  and  can  be  easily  done ;  let 
him  mend  the  world,  paintings  are  easily  mended." 
Paul  finally  had  the  nude  figures  draped  by  Daniele 


50  MICHAEL   ANGELO. 

da  Volterra,  who  thereupon  bore  the  nickname  of 
"  the  breeches-maker." 

While  painting  this  picture,  the  artist  fell  from 
the  scaffold  and  injured  his  leg  seriously.  He 
refused  to  allow  anything  to  be  done  for  him,  but 
his  friend,  the  surgeon  Kontini,  forced  his  way 
into  the  house,  and  cared  for  him  until  he  recov- 
ered. 

These  eight  years  had  been  the  happiest  of 
Michael  Angelo's  life.  Before  this  time  he  had 
been  cold  in  manner,  often  melancholy,  and  some- 
times overbearing ;  now  he  was  gentle,  cheerful, 
and  affectionate.  He  had  written  home  in  early 
life,  "  I  have  no  friends ;  I  need  none,  and  wish  to 
have  none."  Now  he  had  found,  what  every 
human  being  needs,  a  friend  whose  tastes  and  aspira- 
tions were  like  his  own.  At  sixty,  he  met  and 
loved  Vittoria  Colonna,  a  woman  whose  mind  was 
henceforward  to  be  his  inspiration,  and  whose 
sweet  nature  was  to  be  his  rest  and  satisfaction 
forever.  For  such  a  mind  as  Michael  Angelo's 
there  are  few  kindred  spirits.  Fortunate  was  he 
that  the  blessed  gift  came,  even  though  late  in' 
life. 

Vittoria  was  the  daughter  of  Fabrizio  Colonna, 
and  the  widow  of  Marchese  di  Pescara,  the  two 
highest  nobles  and  generals  of  her  time.  Tenderly 
reared  and  highly  educated,  she  had  married  at 
nineteen,  her  husband  soon  after  engaging  in  the 
wars  of  the  time.  He  was  wounded  at  Pavia,  and 
died  before  his  young  wife  could  reach  him.  He 


MICHAEL  ANGELO.  51 

was  buried  at  Milan,  but  the  body  was  afterwards 
removed  to  Naples  with  great  magnificence. 

Vittoria,  childless,  well-nigh  heart-broken,  turned 
to  literature  as  her  solace.  She  desired  to  enter  a 
convent ;  but  the  bishop  of  Carpentros,  afterwards 
a  cardinal,  and  an  intimate  friend  of  Vittoria, 
hastened  to  Paul  III.,  who  forbade  the  abbess  and 
nuns  of  San  Silvestro,  on  pain  of  excommunica- 
tion, to  permit  her  to  take  the  veil.  Vittoria  must 
not  be  lost  to  the  world. 

When  her  poems  were  published,  says  T.  Adol- 
phus  Trollope,  in  his  life  of  this  charming  woman, 
"  copies  were  as  eagerly  sought  for  as  the  novel  of 
the  season  at  a  nineteenth-century  circulating 
library.  Cardinals,  bishops,  poets,  wits,  diploma- 
tists, passed  them  from  one  to  another,  made  them 
the  subject  of  their  correspondence  with  each  other 
and  with  the  fair  mourner." 

Hallam  says,  "  The  rare  virtues  and  consummate 
talents  of  this  lady  were  the  theme  of  all  Italy  in 
that  brilliant  age  of  her  literature." 

Vittoria  Colonna  is  one  of  the  best  illustrations 
tin  history  of  what  a  noble  and  intellectual  woman 
can  do  for  the  upbuilding  of  society.  Many  gifted 
men  gave  her  a  sincere  affection,  and  she  held  that 
affection  while  life  lasted.  She  was  well  read  in 
history,  religious  matters,  and  classic  literature. 
Her  first  visit  to  Rome  was  a  continued  ovation. 
Even  the  Emperor  Charles  V.  called  upon  her. 
Unselfish,  sympathetic,  with  a  gentle  and  winsome 
manner  that  drew  every  one  into  confidence,  she 


52  MICHAEL   ANGELO. 

proved  herself  a  companion  for  the  most  highly 
educated,  and  a  helper  for  the  lowly. 

When  she  visited  Ferrara,  Duke  Hercules  II., 
who  had  married  Renee  of  France,  the  daughter  of 
Louis  XII.,  received  her,  says  Trollope,  "with 
every  possible  distinction  on  the  score  of  her  poeti- 
cal celebrity,  and  deemed  his  city  honored  by  her 
presence.  He  invited,  we  are  told,  the  most  dis- 
tinguished poets  and  men  of  letters  of  Venice  and 
Lombardy  to  meet  her  at  Ferrara.  And  so  much 
was  her  visit  prized  that  when  Cardinal  Giberto 
sent  thither  his  secretary,  Francesco  della  Torre,  to 
persuade  her  to  visit  his  episcopal  city,  Verona, 
that  ambassador  wrote  to  his  friend  Bembo,  at 
Venice,  that  he  had  like  to  have  been  banished  by 
the  Duke,  and  stoned  by  the  people,  for  coming 
there  with  the  intention  of  robbing  Ferrara  of  its 
most  precious  treasure,  for  the  purpose  of  enrich- 
ing Verona."  .  .  .  The  learned  and  elegant  Bembo 
writes  of  her  that  he  considered  her  poetical  judg- 
ment'as  sound  and  authoritative  as  that  of  the 
greatest  masters  of  the  art  of  song.  .  .  .  Bernardo 
Tasso  made  her  the  subject  of  several  of  hi» 
poems.  Giovio  dedicated  to  her  his  life  of  Pes- 
cara,  and  Cardinal  Pompeo  Colonna  his  book  on 
"  The  Praises  of  Women ;  "  and  Contarini  paid 
her  the  far  more  remarkable  compliment  of  dedi- 
cating to  her  his  work  "  On  Free  Will." 

"Paul  III.  was,"  as  Muratori  says,  "by  no 
means  well  disposed  towards  the  Colonna  family. 
Yet  Vittoria  must  have  had  influence  with  the 


MICHAEL  ANGELO.  53 

haughty  and  severe  old  Farnese.  For  both  Bembo 
and  Fregoso,  the  Bishop  of  Naples,  have  taken 
occasion  to  acknowledge  that  they  owed  their 
promotion  to  the  purple  in  great  measure  to  her." 

It  is  probable  that  she  first  met  Michael  Angelo 
in  the  year  1536.  He  was  then  sixty-one,  and  she 
forty-six.  "A  woman,"  says  Grimm,  "needs  not 
extreme  youth  to  captivate  the  mind  of  a  man  who 
discovers  in  her  the  highest  intelligence.  .  .  .  She 
belonged  to  that  class  of  women  who,  apparently 
with  no  will  of  their  own,  never  seek  to  extort 
anything  by  force,  and  yet  obtain  everything  which 
is  placed  before  them.  .  .  .  How  tenderly  she 
exercised  her  authority  over  Michael  Angelo,  who 
had  never  before  been  approached ;  whom  she  now 
for  the  first  time  inspired  with  the  happiness  of 
yielding  to  a  woman,  and  for  whom  the  years 
which  she  passed  at  that  time  in  Rome  she  made  a 
period  of  happiness,  which  he  had  never  before 
known.  .  .  .  Whenever  we  contemplate  the  life  of 
great  men,  the  most  beautiful  part  of  their  exist- 
ence is  that,  when  meeting  with  a  power  equal  to 
their  own,  they  find  one  worthy  of  measuring  the 
depths  of  their  mind.  .  .  .  There  is  no  deeper 
desire  than  that  of  meeting  such  a  mind ;  no 
greater  happiness  than  having  found  it ;  no  greater 
sorrow  than  to  resign  this  happiness,  whether  it  be 
that  it  has  never  been  enjoyed,  or  that  it  has  been 
lost." 

Francesco  d'Ollanda,  a  portrait-painter,  has  de- 
scribed one  of  the  Sundays  which  he  spent  in  the 


54  MICHAEL   ANGELO. 

company  of  Michael  Angelo  and  Vittoria,  "  the  lat- 
ter of  whom  he  calls  beautiful,  pure  in  conduct, 
and  acquainted  with  the  Latin  tongue ;  in  short, 
she  is  adorned  with  every  grace  which  can  redound 
to  a  woman's  praise." 

When  Michael  Angelo  arrived  at  her  home  on 
that  Sunday,  Vittoria,  "who  could  never  speak 
without  elevating  those  with  whom  she  conversed 
and  even  the  place  where  she  was,  began  to  lead 
the  conversation  with  the  greatest  art  upon  all 
possible  things,  without,  however,  touching  even 
remotely  upon  painting.  She  wished  to  give 
Michael  Angelo  assurance."  She  said  to*  him, 
"I  cannot  but  admire  the  manner  in  which  you 
withdraw  yourself  from  the  world,  from  useless 
conversation,  and  from  all  the  offers  of  princes 
who  desire  paintings  from  your  hand,  —  how  you 
avoid  it  all,  and  how  you  have  disposed  the  labor 
of  your  whole  life  as  one  single,  great  work." 

"Gracious  lady,"  replied  Michael  Angelo,  "these 
are  undeserved  praises ;  but,  as  the  conversation 
has  taken  this  turn,  I  must  here  complain  of  the 
public.  A  thousand  silly  reproaches  are  brought 
against  artists  of  importance.  They  say  that  they 
are  strange  people,  that  they  are  not  to  be 
approached,  that  there  is  no  bearing  with  them. 
No  one,  on  the  contrary,  can  be  so  natural  and 
human  as  great  artists.  .  .  .  How  should  an  artist, 
absorbed  in  his  work,  take  from  it  time  and  thought 
to  drive  away  other  people's  ennui  ?  .  .  .  An  artist 
who,  instead  of  satisfying  the  highest  demands  of 


MICHAEL   ANGELO.  55 

t 
his  art,  tries  to  suit  himself  to  the  great   public, 

who  has  nothing  strange  or  peculiar  in  his  personal 
exterior,  or  rather  what  the  world  calls  so,  —  will 
never  become  an  extraordinary  mind.  It  is  true, 
as  regards  the  ordinary  race  of  artists,  we  need 
take  no  lantern  to  look  for  them ;  they  stand  at 
the  corner  of  every  street  throughout  the  world, 
ready  for  all  who  seek  them.  .  .  .  True  art  is  made 
noble  and  religious  by  the  mind  producing  it.  For, 
for  those  who  feel  it,  nothing  makes  the  soul  so 
religious  and  pure  as  the  endeavor  to  create  some- 
thing perfect,  for  God  is  perfection,  and  whoever 
strives  after  it  is  striving  after  something  divine. 
True  painting  is  only  an  image  of  the  perfection  of 
God,  a  shadow  of  the  pencil  with  which  he  paints, 
—  a  melody,  a  striving  after  harmony." 

And  then,  says  d'Ollanda,  "Vittoria  began  a 
eulogium  upon  painting ;  she  spoke  of  its  enno- 
bling influence  upon  a  people,  —  how  it  led  them 
to  piety,  to  glory,  to  greatness,  until  the  tears 
came  into  her  eyes  from  the  emotion  within." 

For  ten  or  twelve  years,  in  the  midst  of  long 
separations  and  many  sorrows,  this  affection  of 
Vittoria  and  Michael  Angelo  shed  its  transcendent 
light  over  two  great  lives.  It  was  impossible  not  to 
love  a  woman  with  such  tenderness,  sympathy,  and 
sincerity.  We  may  admire  a  beautiful  or  a  brilliant 
woman,  but  if  she  lacks  tenderness  and  sincerity 
the  world  soon  loses  its  allegiance.  When  political 
changes  made  it  necessary  for  her  to  leave  Rome 
and  go  to  the  Convent  of  St.  Catherine  at  Viterbo, 


56  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

« 
Michael  Angelo  wrote  her  daily,  while  he  painted  in 

the  Pauline  Chapel,  after  the  "  Last  Judgment "  was 
finished,  the  "  Crucifixion  of  Peter,"  and  the  "  Con- 
version of  Paul."  In  1542  she  wrote  him  tenderly, 
<l  I  have  not  answered  your  letter  before,  thinking 
that  if  you  and  I  continue  to  write  according  to  my 
obligation  and  your  courtesy,  it  will  be  necessary 
that  I  leave  St.  Catherine's  Chapel,  without  finding 
myself  with  the  sisters  at  the  appointed  hours,  and 
that  you  must  abandon  the  Pauline  Chapel,  arid 
not  keep  yourself  all  the  day  long  in  sweet  colloquy 
with  your  paintings  ...  so  that  I  from  the  brides 
of  Christ,  and  you  from  his  vicar,  shall  fall  away." 
However  she  may  chide  him  for  writing  too 
frequently,  his  words  and  works  are  most  precious 
to  her.  "When  he  paints  for  her  a  picture,  she 
writes,  "  I  had  the  greatest  faith  in  God,  that  he 
would  give  you  a  supernatural  grace  to  paint  this 
Christ;  then  I  saw  it,  so  wonderful  that  it  sur- 
passed in  every  way  my  expectations.  Being 
emboldened  by  your  miracles,  I  desired  that  which 
I  now  see  marvellously  fulfilled,  that  is,  that  it 
should  stand  in  every  part  in  the  highest  perfec- 
tion, and  that  one  could  not  desire  more  nor  reach 
forward  to  desire  so  much.  And  I  tell  you  that  it 
gave  me  joy  that  the  angel  on  the  right  hand  is  so 
beautiful ;  for  the  Archangel  Michael  will  place 
you,  Michael  Angelo,  on  the  right  hand  of  the  Lord 
at  the  judgment  day.  And  meanwhile  I  know  not 
how  to  serve  you  otherwise  than  to  pray  to  this 
sweet  Christ,  whom  you  have  so  well  and  perfectly 


MICHAEL   ANGELO.  57 

painted,  and  to  entreat  you  to  command  me  as 
altogether  yours  in  all  and  through  all." 

What  delicate  appreciation  of  the  genius  of  the 
man  she  loved  !  How  it  must  have  stimulated 
and  blessed  him  !  But  more  than  all  else  she 
loved  Michael  Angelo  for  the  one  thing  women 
value  most  in  men,  the  strength  and  constancy  of 
a  nature  that  gives  a  single  and  lasting  devotion. 

She  gave  to  Michael  Angelo  a  vellum  book,  con- 
taining one  hundred  and  three  of  her  sonnets,  and 
sent  him  forty  new  ones  which  she  composed  at  the 
convent  of  Viterbo.  These  he  had  bound  up  in  the 
same  book  which  he  received  from  her ;  her  for 
whom,  he  said,  "  I  would  have  done  more  than  for 
any  one.  else  whom  I  could  name  in  the  world." 
He  wrote  back  his  thanks  with  the  sweet  self- 
abnegation  of  love. 

"  And  well  I  see  how  false  it  were  to  think 
That  any  work,  faded  and  frail,  of  mine, 
Could  emulate  the  perfect  grace  of  thine. 
Genius,  and  art,  and  daring,  backward  shrink. 
A  thousand  works  from  mortals  like  to  me 
Can  ne'er  repay  what  Heaven  has  given  thee." 

She  inspired  him  to  write  poetry.  "  The  produc- 
tions of  our  great  artist's  pen,"  says  John  Edward 
Taylor,  "rank  unquestionably  in  the  number  of 
the  most  perfect  of  his  own  or  any  subsequent  age. 
Stamped  by  a  flow  of  eloquence,  a  purity  of  style, 
an  habitual  nobleness  of  sentiment,  they  discover  a 
depth  of  thought  rarely  equalled,  and  frequently 
approaching  to  the  sublimity  of  Dante." 


58  MICHAEL   ANGELO. 

Several  of  his  most  beautiful  sonnets  were  to 
Vittoria :  — 

"  If  it  be  true  that  any  beauteous  thing 
Raises  the  pure  and  just  desire  of  man 
From  earth  to  God,  the  eternal  fount  of  all, 
Such  I  believe  my  love:  for,  as  in  her 
So  fair,  in  whom  I  all  besides  forget, 
I  view  the  gentle  work  of  her  Creator; 
I  have  no  care  for  any  other  thing 
Whilst  thus  I  love.     Nor  is  it  marvellous, 
Since  the  effect  is  not  of  my  own  power, 
If  the  soul  doth  by  nature,  tempted  forth, 
Enamored  through  the  eyes, 
Repose  upon  the  eyes  which  it  resembleth, 
And  through  them  riseth  to  the  primal  love, 
As  to  its  end,  and  honors  in  admiring  : 
For  who  adores  the  Maker  needs  must  love  his  work." 

"  If  a  chaste  love,  exalted  piety, 
If  equal  fortune  between  two  who  love, 
Whose  every  joy  and  sorrow  are  the  same, 
One  spirit  only  governing  two  hearts,  — 
If  one  soul  in  two  bodies  made  eterne, 
Raising  them  both  to  Heaven  on  equal  wings,  — 
If  the  same  flame,  one  undivided  ray, 
Shine  forth  to  each,  from  inward  unity, — 
If  mutual  love,  for  neither's  self  reserved, 
Desiring  only  the  return  of  love,  — 
If  that  which  one  desires  the  other  swift 
Anticipates,  impelled  by  an  unconscious  power,  — 
Are  signs  of  an  indissoluble  faith, 
Shall  aught  have  power  to  loosen  such  a  bond  ?  " 

JOHN  EDWARD  TAYLOK. 

In  1544  the  Colonna  estates  were  confiscated  by 
the  pope,  after  a  contest  between  Paul  III.  and  the 


MICHAEL   ANGELO.  59 

powerful  Colonnas,  in  which  the  latter  were  de- 
feated, and  Vittoria  retired  to  the  Benedictine  Con- 
vent of  St.  Anna.  Here  her  health  failed.  The 
celebrated  physician  and  poet  Fracastoro  said, 
"  Would  that  a  physician  for  her  mind  could  be 
found !  Otherwise,  the  fairest  light  in  this  world 
will,  from  causes  by  no  means  clear,  be  extinguished 
and  taken  from  our  eyes." 

At  the  beginning  of  1547  she  became  dangerously 
ill,  and  was  conveyed  to  the  palace  of  her  relative 
Giuliano  Cesarini,  the  only  one  of  her  kindred  in 
Rome.  She  died  towards  the  last  of  February,  1547, 
at  the  age  of  fifty-seven. 

She  requested  to  be  buried  like  the  sisters  with 
whom  she  last  resided,  and  so  entirely  were  her 
wishes  carried  out  that  her  place  of  sepulture  is 
unknown. 

Michael  Angelo  staid  beside  her  to  the  very 
last.  When  she  was  gone  he  almost  lost  his  senses. 
Says  his  pupil,  Condivi,  "  He  bore  such  a  love  to 
her  that  I  remember  to  have  heard  him  say  that 
he  grieved  at  nothing  so  much  as  that  when  he 
went  to  see  her  pass  from  this  life  he  had  not 
kissed  her  brow  or  her  face,  as  he  kissed  her  hand. 
After  her  death  he  frequently  stood  trembling  and 
as  if  insensible." 

He  wrote  several  sonnets  to  her  memory. 

"When  the  prime  mover  of  my  many  sighs 
Heaven  took  through  death  from  out  her  earthly  place, 
Nature,  that  never  made  so  fair  a  face, 
Remained  ashamed,  and  tears  were  in  all  eyes. 


60  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

O  fate,  unheeding  my  impassioned  cries! 

O  hopes  fallacious!    O  thou  spirit  of  grace, 

Where  art  thou  now  ?    Earth  holds  in  its  embrace 

Thy  lovely  limbs,  thy  holy  thoughts  the  skies. 

Vainly  did  cruel  Death  attempt  to  stay 

The  rumor  of  thy  virtuous  renown, 

That  Lethe's  waters  could  not  wash  away! 

A  thousand  leaves,  since  he  hath  stricken  thee  down, 

Speak  of  thee,  nor  to  thee  would  heaven  convey, 

Except  through  death,  a  refuge  and  a  crown." 

HENRY  W.  LONGFELLOW. 

The  monument  of  Julius  had  at  last  been  com- 
pleted, and  placed  in  the  Church  of  San  Pietro  in 
Vincola.  In  1546,  Antonio  di  San  Gallo,  the 
director  of  the  building  of  St.  Peter's,  died,  and 
Michael  Angelo  was  commissioned  to  carry  forward 
the  work.  Fortunately  Vittoria  lived  to  see  this 
honor  conferred  upon  him. 

He  was  now  seventy-one  years  old.  For  the 
remaining  eighteen  years  of  his  life,  he  devoted 
himself  to  this  great  labor,  without  compensation. 
When  Paul  III.,  with  Cardinal  Marcello,  summoned 
Michael  Angelo  to  talk  over  some  alleged  defects, 
the  aged  artist  boldly  replied  to  the  cardinal,  "  I  am 
not  nor  will  I  consent  to  be  obliged  to  tell,  to  your 
eminence  or  any  one  else,  what  I  ought  or  wish  to 
do.  Your  office  is  to  bring  money  and  guard  it 
from  thieves,  and  the  designing  of  the  building  is 
left  to  me."  Then  he  said  to  the  pope,  "Holy 
Father,  you  see  what  I  gain ;  if  these  fatigues 
which  I  endure  do  not  benefit  my  soul,  I  lose  both 
time  and  labor."  The  pope,  who  loved  him,  placed 


MICHAEL  ANGELO.  61 

his  hands  on  his  shoulders,  saying,  "You  benefit 
both  soul  and  body :  do  not  doubt." 

When  asked  if  the  new  dome  would  not  surpass 
that  of  the  Duomo  of  Florence,  by  Brunelleschi, 
he  said,  "It  will  be  more  grand,  but  not  more 
beautiful." 

Michael  Angelo  lived  very  simply  in  Rome, 
though  he  had  amassed  a  large  property,  most  of 
which  he  left  to  his  nephew  Leonardo,  to  whom 
and  his  family  he  was  tenderly  attached.  When 
this  nephew  was  married,  the  sculptor  wrote  him 
"not  to  care  about  a  great  dowry,  but  that  you 
should  look  to  a  healthy  mind,  a  healthy  body, 
good  blood,  and  good  education,  and  what  sort  of 
family  it  is.  ...  Above  all,  seek  the  counsel  of 
God,  for  it  is  a  great  step." 

Michael  Angelo  was  devotedly  attached  to  Urbino, 
who  had  been  his  servant  for  twenty-six  years,  and 
who  loved  him  so  much,  says  Vasari,  "  that  he  had 
nursed  him  in  sickness,  and  slept  at  night  in  his 
clothes  beside  him,  the  better  to  watch  for  his  com- 
forts." One  day  the  artist  said  to  him,  "  When  I 
die,  what  wilt  thou  do  ?  "  —  "  Serve  some  one  else," 
was  the  reply.  "Thou  poor  creature,  I  must  save 
thee  from  that,"  said  the  sculptor,  and  immediately 
gave  him  two  thousand  crowns. 

At  Urbino's  death,  when  his  master  was  about 
eighty,  Michael  Angelo  wrote  Vasari,  in  deep  grief, 
of  his  "  infinite  loss."  "  Nor  have  I  now  left  any 
other  hope  than  that  of  rejoining  him  in  Paradise. 
But  of  this  God  has  given  me  a  foretaste,  in  the 


62  MICHAEL   ANGELO. 

most  blessed  death  that  he  has  died ;  his  own 
departure  did  not  grieve  him.  as  did  the  leaving 
me  in  this  treacherous  world,  with  so  many  troubles. 
Truly  is  the  best  part  of  my  being  gone  with  him, 
nor  is  anything  now  left  me  except  an  infinite 
sorrow." 

The  artist  was  again  and  again  urged  to  return 
to  Florence,  by  the  reigning  dukes,  but  he  replied, 
"  You  must  see  by  my  handwriting  that  I  touch 
the  twenty-fourth  hour,  and  no  thought  is  now  born 
in  my  mind  in  which  death  is  not  mixed." 

He  was  implored  on  every  side  to  carve  statues 
and  paint  pictures.  He  promised  Francis  I.  of 
France  a  work  in  marble,  in  bronze,  and  in  painting. 
"  Should  death  interrupt  this  desire,"  said  Michael 
Angelo,  "then,  if  it  be  possible  to  sculpture  or 
paint  in  the  other  world,  I  shall  not  fail  to  do 
so,  where  no  one  becomes  old." 

He  furnished  plans  for  several  Koman  gates 
which  Pius  IV.,  who  succeeded  Paul  IV.,  wished  to 
rebuild,  and  made  designs  for  various  other  build- 
ings and  public  squares.  He  erected  the  Church 
of  St.  Mary  of  the  Angels,  amid  the  ruins  of  the 
Baths  of  Diocletian.  "  Nothing  exists  in  architec- 
ture," says  Mr.  Heath  Wilson,  "  which  exceeds  the 
plan  of  this  church  in  beauty  and  variety  of  form. 
The  general  proportions  are  so  harmonious,  the 
lines  of  the  plan  so  gracefully  disposed,  the  form 
of  the  whole  so  original,  that,  without  looking  at 
the  elevations,  the  eye  is  delighted  by  the  evidence 
on  all  sides  of  the  imagination,  taste,  and  skill 


MICHAEL  ANGELO.  63 

shown  by  the  venerable  architect  in  this   superb 
work." 

The  great  sculptor  never  ceased  to  work  or  to 
study.  When  old  he  drew  a  picture  representing 
himself  as  an  aged  man  in  a  cart,  with  these  words 
underneath :  Ancora  impara  (still  learning).  He 
painted  but  two  portraits,  one  of  Vittoria  Colonna, 
and  one  of  young  Tommaso  dei  Cavalieri,  whom  he 
tenderly  loved.  To  this  youth,  whom  Varchi,  the 
Florentine  professor  and  court  scholar,  declared  to 
be  the  most  attractive  young  man  he  had  ever 
known,  Michael  Angelo  wrote  this  beautiful  son- 
net :  — 

"  Through  thee  I  catch  a  gleam  of  tender  glow, 
Which  with  iny  own  eyes  I  had  failed  to  see; 
And  walking  onward  step  by  step  with  thee, 
The  once  oppressing  burdens  lighter  grow. 
With  thee,  my  grovelling  thoughts  I  heavenward  raise, 
Borne  upward  by  thy  bold,  aspiring  wing; 
I  follow  where  thou  wilt,  —  a  helpless  thing, 
Cold  in  the  sun,  and  warm  in  winter  days. 
My  will,  my  friend,  rests  only  upon  thine; 
Thy  heart  must  every  thought  of  mine  supply; 
My  mind  expression  finds  in  thee  alone. 
Thus  like  the  moonlight's  silver  ray  I  shine: 
We  only  see  her  beams  on  the  far  sky, 
When  the  sun's  fiery  rays  are  o'er  her  thrown." 

His  last  work  was  a  group  of  the  Virgin  and  the 
dead  Christ,  which  he  intended  should  be  placed 
on  an  altar  over  his  own  tomb ;  but  it  was  left  un- 
finished from  a  flaw  in  the  marble,  and  is  now  in 
the  cathedral  in  Florence.  Vasari  found  the  aged 
artist  working  at  it  late  at  night,  when  he  had 


64  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 

arisen  from  his  bed  because  he  could  not  sleep.  A 
tallow  candle  was  placed  in  his  pasteboard  cap,  so 
as  to  leave  his  hands  free  for  work.  Once,  as  they 
were  looking  at  the  statue,  Michael  Angelo  suffered 
the  lantern  which  he  held  in  his  hand  to  fall,  and 
they  were  left  in  darkness.  He  remarked,  "  I  am  so 
old  that  Death  often  pulls  me  by  the  cape,  and  bids 
me  go  with  him  ;  some  day  I  shall  fall  myself,  like 
this  lamp,  and  the  light  of  life  will  be  extinguished." 

To  the  last  Michael  Angelo  was  always  learning. 
He  used  often  to  visit  the  Vatican  to  study  the 
Torso  Belvedere,  which  he  declared  had  been  of 
the  greatest  benefit  to  him. 

In  1563-64  he  was  elected  vice-president  of  the 
Florentine  Academy  of  Fine  Arts.  That  winter 
his  strength  failed  rapidly,  though  all  was  done 
for  him  that  love  and  honor  could  possibly  do,  for 
he  had  many  devoted  friends  among  all  classes, 
and  was  constantly  aiding  artists  and  others.  He 
did  not  fear  death,  for  he  said,  "  If  life  be  a  pleas- 
ure, since  death  also  is  sent  by  the  hand  of  the 
same  master,  neither  should  that  displease  us." 

Between  three  and  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon 
of  the  18th  of  February,  1564,  the  same  month  in 
which  Vittoria  died,  the  great  man  passed  away,  in 
the  ninetieth  year  of  his  age.  Daniele  da  Volterra, 
Condivi,  and  Cavalieri  stood  by  his  bedside.  His 
last  words  to  them  were,  "  I  give  my  soul  to  God, 
my  body  to  the  earth,  and  my  worldly  possessions  to 
my  nearest  of  kin." 

The  pope  and  the  Romans  were  determined  to 


MICHAEL  ANGELO.  65 

keep  the  dead  Michael  Angelo  in  Rome  ;  but  his 
wish  had  been  to  lie  in  Florence.  The  body,  there- 
fore, was  conveyed  to  the  latter  city,  disguised  as 
a  bale  of  merchandise,  and  buried  in  Santa  Croce, 
on  Sunday  night,  March  12th,  the  Tuscan  artists 
following  with  their  lighted  torches,  accompanied 
by  thousands  of  citizens.  In  the  month  of  July  a 
grand  memorial  service  was  held,  in  the  Church  of 
San  Lorenzo,  for  the  illustrious  dead,  paintings  and 
statuary  surrounding  a  catafalque  fifty-four  feet  high. 
After  thirty  years  of  voluntary  exile,  the  melan- 
choly, solitary,  great-souled  man  lay  in  his  native 
Florence.  He  had  loved  liberty  and  uprightness. 
He  had  been  ambitious,  and  devoted  to  his  mas- 
terly work,  with  the  will-power  and  intensity  which 
belong  to  genius.  He  had  allowed  no  obstacles  to 
stand  in  his  path,  — neither  lack  of  money  nor  jeal- 
ousy of  artists.  He  had  faith  in  himself.  He  spoke 
sometimes  too  plainly,  but  almost  always  justly. 
Cold  and  unapproachable  though  he  was,  children 
loved  him,  and  for  them  he  would  stop  and  make 
sketches  on  the  street.  He  had  the  fearlessness 
of  one  who  rightly  counts  manhood  above  all 
titles.  He  was  too  noble  to  be  trifling,  or  petty, 
or  self-indulgent.  Great  in  sculpture,  painting, 
poetry,  architecture,  engineering,  character,  he  has 
left  an  imperishable  name.  Taine  says,  "  There 
are  four  men  in  the  world  of  art  and  of  literature 
exalted  above  all  others,  and  to  such  a  degree  as  to 
seem  to  belong  to  another  race  ;  namely,  Dante, 
Shakespeare,  Beethoven,  and  Michael  Angelo." 


LEONARDO   DA   VINCI. 


"  rTIHE  world  perhaps  contains  no  example  of  a 
-L  genius  so  universal,  so  creative,  so  incapable 
of  self-contentment,  so  athirst  for  the  infinite,  so 
naturally  refined,  so  far  in  advance  of  his  own  and 
of  subsequent  ages.  His  countenances  express 
incredible  sensibility  and  mental  power ;  they 
overflow  with  unexpressed  ideas  and  emotions. 
Michael  Angelo's  personages  alongside  of  his  are 
simply  heroic  athletes ;  Raphael's  virgins  are  only 
placid  children,  whose  sleeping  souls  have  not  yet 
lived."  Thus  writes  Taine  of  Da  Vinci,  in  his 
"  Travels  in  Italy." 

Mrs.  Jameson  calls  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  in  her 
"Early  Italian  Painters,"  "The  miracle  of  that 
age  of  miracles.  Ardent  and  versatile  as  youth ; 
patient  and  persevering  as  age  ;  a  most  profound 
and  original  thinker;  the  greatest  mathematician 
and  most  ingenious  mechanic  of  his  time ;  architect, 
chemist,  engineer,  musician,  poet,  painter !  " 

Hallam,  in  his  "  History  of  the  Literature  of 
Europe,"  says  of  the  published  extracts  from  the 
great  volumes  of  manuscript  left  by  Leonardo, 
"  These  are,  according  to  our  common  estimate  of 
the  age  in  which  he  lived,  more  like  revelations  of 


//////// ! 'iiim  mi! I, 
EON  ARDdc  VlNCl 


LEONARDO  DA  VINCL 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI.  67 

physical  truths  vouchsafed  to  a  single  mind,  than 
the  superstructure  of  its  reasoning  upon  any  estab- 
lished basis.  The  discoveries  which  made  Galileo, 
Kepler,  Castelli,  and  other  names  illustrious  —  the 
system  of  Copernicus  — the  very  theories  of  recent 
geologists,  are  anticipated  by  Da  Vinci  within  the 
compass  of  a  few  pages,  not  perhaps  in  the  most 
precise  language,  or  on  the  most  conclusive  reason- 
ing, but  so  as  to  strike  us  with  something  like  the 
awe  of  preternatural  knowledge.  In  an  age  of  so 
much  dogmatism,  he  first  laid  down  the  grand 
principle  of  Bacon,  that  experiment  and  observa- 
tion must  be  the  guides  to  just  theory  in  the  inves- 
tigation of  nature. 

"  If  any  doubt  could  be  harbored,  not  as  to  the 
right  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci  to  stand  as  the  first 
name  of  the  fifteenth  century,  which  is  beyond  all 
doubt,  but  as  to  his  originality  in  so  many  discov- 
eries, which  probably  no  one  man,  especially  in 
such  circumstances,  has  ever  made,  it  must  be  by 
an  hypothesis,  not  very  untenable,  that  some  parts 
of  physical  science  had  already  attained  a  height 
which  mere  books  do  not  record." 

This  man,  whom  Vasari  thinks  "  specially  en- 
dowed by  the  hand  of  God  himself,"  was  born  in 
1452,  at  Castello  da  Vinci,  a  village  in  the  Val 
d'Arno,  near  Florence.  His  father,  Piero  Antonio 
da  Vinci,  was  a  notary  of  the  republic,  a  man  of 
considerable  property  and  influence.  When  he 
was  twenty-five,  he  married  the  first  of  his  four 
wives,  Albiera  di  Giovanni  Amadori,  in  1452,  and 


68  LEONARDO   DA    VINCI. 

brought  home  his  illegitimate  son,  Leonardo,  born 
the  same  year,  whom  she  tenderly  cared  for  as  her 
own. 

Of  Leonardo's  mother,  Caterina,  little  is  known, 
save  that  five  years  later  she  married,  presumably  in 
her  own  circle.  Among  the  twelve  other  children 
who  came  into  the  home  of  the  advocate,  Leonardo 
was  the  especial  pet  and  pride,  probably  because 
he  seemed  to  have  been  given  all  the  talents  origi- 
nally intended  for  the  Da  Vinci  family. 

The  handsome  boy,  whose  "beauty  of  person," 
says  Vasari,  "  was  such  that  it  has  never  been  suffi- 
ciently extolled,"  and  with  "  a  grace  beyond  expres- 
sion," cheerful,  eager,  enthusiastic,  and  warm- 
hearted, when  sent  to  school,  learned  everything  with 
avidity.  "  In  arithmetic  he  often  confounded  the 
master  who  taught  him,  by  his  reasonings  and  by 
the  difficulty  of  the  problems  he  proposed."  He 
had  that  omnivorous  appetite  for  books  which 
Higginson  calls  the  sure  indication  of  genius. 

He  loved  nature  intensely.  He  studied  every 
flower  and  tree  about  the  country  home ;  made 
companions  of  the  river  Arno,  the  changing  clouds, 
and  the  snow-capped  mountains.  Passionately 
fond  of  music,  he  not  only  learned  to  play  on  the 
guitar  and  lute,  but  invented  a  lyre  of  his  own,  on 
which  he  improvised  both  the  song  and  the  air. 

On  the  margins  of  his  books  he  sketched  such 
admirable  drawings  that  his  father  took  them  to 
Andrea  Verrochio,  a  famous  Florentine  artist,  who 
was  "  amazed,"  and  advised  that  the  youth  become 


LEONARDO  DA.  VINCI.  69 

a  painter.  Leonardo  entered  the  studio  of  Verro- 
chio  when  he  was  about  eighteen,  and  at  once 
became  deeply  absorbed  in  his  work.  He  began  to 
make  models  in  clay,  arranging  on  these  soft 
drapery  dipped  in  plaster,  which  he  drew  carefully 
in  black  and  white  on  fine  linen ;  also  heads  of 
smiling  women  and  children  out  of  terra  cotta : 
already  he  had  that  divine  gift  of  painting  the 
"  Da  Vinci  smile,"  which  seems  to  have  been  born 
with  him  and  to  have  died  with  him.  He  studied 
perspective,  and  with  his  fellow-students  made 
chemical  researches  into  the  improvement  of  colors. 

Verrochio  was  engaged  in  painting  a  picture  of 
St.  John  baptizing  Christ,  for  the  monks  of  Val- 
lombrosa,  and  requested  Leonardo  to  paint  an 
angel  in  the  left-hand  corner,  holding  some  vest- 
ments. When  the  work  was  finished,  and  Verro- 
chio looked  upon  Leonardo's  angel,  "  a  space  of 
sunlight  in  the  cold,  labored  old  picture,"  as  W.  H. 
Pater  says,  in  his  "  Studies  in  the  History  of  the 
Renaissance,"  Verrochio  became  so  discouraged 
"  because  a  mere  child  could  do  more  than  himself," 
that  he  would  never  touch  the  brush  again.  This 
work  is  now  in  the  Academy  of  Fine  Arts  in 
Florence. 

About  this  time,  according  to  Vasari,  Leonardo 
made  his  famous  shield  Rotella  del  Fico.  "  Ser 
Piero  da  Vinci,  being  at  his  country  house,  was 
there  visited  by  one  of  the  peasants  on  his  estate, 
who,  having  cut  down  a  fig-tree  on  his  farm,  had 
made  a  shield  from  part  of  it  with  his  own  hands, 


70  LEONARDO  DA    VINCI. 

and  then  brought  it  to  Set  Piero,  begging  that  he 
would  be  pleased  to  cause  the  same  to  be  painted 
for  him  in  Florence.  This  the  latter  very  willingly 
promised  to  do,  the  countryman  having  great  skill 
in  taking  birds  and  in  fishing,  and  being  often  very 
serviceable  to  Ser  Piero  in  such  matters.  Having 
taken  the  shield  with  him  to  Florence,  therefore, 
without  saying  anything  to  Leonardo  as  to  whom 
it  was  for,  he  desired  the  latter  to  paint  something 
upon  it. 

"  Accordingly,  he  one  day  took  it  in  hand,  but, 
finding  it  crooked,  coarse,  and  badly  made,  he 
straightened  it  at  the  fire,  and,  giving  it  to  a  turner, 
it  was  brought  back  to  him  smooth  and  delicately 
rounded,  instead  of  the  rude  and  shapeless  form  in 
which  he  had  received  it.  He  then  covered  it  with 
gypsum,  and,  having  prepared  it  to  his  liking,  he 
began  to  consider  what  he  could  paint  upon  it 
that  might  best  and  most  effectually  terrify  Avhom- 
soever  might  approach  it,  producing  the  same  effect 
with  that  formerly  attributed  to  the  head  of 
Medusa.  For  this  purpose,  therefore,  Leonardo 
carried  to  one  of  his  rooms,  into  which  no  one  but 
himself  ever  entered,  a  number  of  lizards,  hedge- 
hogs, newts,  serpents,  dragon-flies,  locusts,  bats, 
glow-worms,  and  every  sort  of  strange  animal  of 
similar  kind  on  which  he  could  lay  his  hands ; 
from  this  assemblage,  variously  adapted  and  joined 
together,  he  formed  a  hideous  and  appalling  mon- 
ster, breathing  poison  and  flames,  and  surrounded 
by  an  atmosphere  of  fire ;  this  he  caused  to  issue 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI.  71 

from  a  dark  and  rifted  rock,  with  poison  reeking 
from  the  cavernous  throat,  flames  darting  from  the 
eyes,  and  vapors  rising  from  the  nostrils  in  such 
sort  that  the  result  was  indeed  a  most  fearful  and 
monstrous  creature ;  at  this  he  labored  until  the 
odors  arising  from  all  those  dead  animals  filled  the 
room  with  a  mortal  fetor,  to  which  the  zeal  of 
Leonardo  and  the  love  which  he  bore  to  art  ren- 
dered him  insensible  or  indifferent. 

"  When  this  work,  which  neither  the  countryman 
nor  Ser  Piero  any  longer  inquired  for,  was  com- 
pleted, Leonardo  went  to  his  father  and  told  him 
that  he  might  send  for  the  shield  at  his  earliest 
convenience,  since,  so  far  as  he  was  concerned,  the 
work  was  finished ;  Ser  Piero  went  accordingly 
one  morning  to  the  room  for  the  shield,  and,  having 
knocked  at  the  door,  Leonardo  opened  it  to  him, 
telling  him  nevertheless  to  wait  a  little  without, 
and,  having  returned  into  the  room,  he  placed  the 
shield  on  the  easel,  and,  shading  the  window  so  that 
the  light  falling  on  the  painting  was  somewhat 
dimmed,  he  made  Ser  Piero  step  within  to  look  at 
it.  But  the  latter,  not  expecting  any  such  thing, 
drew  back,  startled  at  the  first  glance,  not  suppos- 
ing that  to  be  the  shield,  or  believing  the  monster 
he  beheld  to  be  a  painting ;  he  therefore  turned  to 
rush  out,  but  Leonardo  withheld  him,  saying,  — 
'  The  shield  will  serve  the  purpose  for  which  it  has 
been  executed ;  take  it,  therefore,  and  carry  it  away, 
for  this  is  the  effect  it  was  designed  to  produce.' 

"The  work  seemed  something  more  than  won- 


72  LEONARDO   DA    VINCI. 

derful  to  Ser  Piero,  and  he  highly  commended  the 
fanciful  idea  of  Leonardo;  but  he  afterwards 
silently  bought  from  a  merchant  another  shield, 
whereon  there  was  painted  a  heart  transfixed  with 
an  arrow,  and  this  he  gave  to  the  countryman,  who 
considered  himself  obliged  to  him  for  it  to  the  end 
of  his  life.  Some  time  after,  Ser  Piero  secretly 
sold  the  shield  painted  by  Leonardo  to  certain 
merchants  for  one  hundred  ducats,  and  it  subse- 
quently fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Duke  of  Milan, 
sold  to  him  by  the  same  merchants  for  three  hun- 
dred ducats." 

Leonardo  painted  also  the  "  Head  of  Medusa,"  in 
the  Uffizi  Gallery,  twined  about  with  green,  hiss- 
ing serpents. 

For  the  King  of  Portugal  he  painted  a  cartoon 
for  a  tapestry  curtain,  —  "  Adam  and  Eve  in  the 
Garden  of  Eden."  Of  the  flowers  and  fruits  in  this 
picture,  Vasari  says,  "For  careful  execution  and 
fidelity  to  nature,  they  are  such  that  there  is  no 
genius  in  the  world,  however  godlike,  which  could 
produce  similar  results  with  equal  truth."  This 
cartoon  is  lost. 

The  "  Madonna  della  Caraffa,"  celebrated  for  the 
exquisite  beauty  of  the  flowers  with  dew  upon 
them,  which  stood  in  a  vase  by  the  Virgin,  and 
was  highly  prized  by  Clement  VII.,  has  also  dis- 
appeared. The  "  Adoration  of  the  Magi  "  and  a 
"Neptune  in  his  Chariot  drawn  by  Sea-horses" 
were  among  Da  Vinci's  works  at  this  time. 

He  was  also  studying  military  engineering,  com- 


LEONARDO   DA    VINCI.  73 

pleted  a  book  of  designs  for  mills  and  other  appa- 
ratus working  by  water,  invented  machines  for 
dredging  seaports  and  channels,  and  urged  the 
making  of  a  canal  from  Pisa  to  Florence,  by  chang- 
ing the  course  of  the  Arno,  a  thing  accomplished 
two  hundred  years  later. 

Still  he  did  not  neglect  his  painting.  He  went 
about  the  streets  of  Florence  looking  for  pictu- 
resque or  beautiful  faces,  which  he  transferred  to 
his  sketch-book,  always  carried  at  his  girdle.  He 
attended  the  execution  of  criminals  to  catch  the 
expression  of  faces  or  contortion  of  limbs  in  agony. 
Yet  so  tender-hearted  was  he,  that,  Vasari  says, 
"  When  he  passed  places  where  birds  were  sold,  he 
would  frequently  take  them  from  their  cages, 
and,  having  paid  the  price  demanded  for  them  by 
the  sellers,  would  then  let  them  fly  into  the  air, 
thus  restoring  to  them  the  liberty  they  had  lost." 

He  loved  art.  He  said,  "  In  the  silence  of  the 
night,  recall  the  ideas  of  the  things  which  you 
have  studied.  Design  in  your  spirit  the  contours 
and  outlines  of  the  figures  that  you  have  seen 
during  the  day.  When  the  spirit  does  not  work 
with  the  hands,  there  is  no  artist.  .  .  .  Do  not 
allege  as  an  excuse  your  poverty,  which  does  not 
permit  you  to  study  and  become  skilful ;  the  study 
of  art  serves  for  nourishment  to  the  body  as  well 
as  the  soul.  .  .  .  When  all  seems  easy,  it  is  an 
unerring  sign  that  the  workman  has  but  scant  abil- 
ity and  that  the  task  is  above  his  comprehension." 

Enjoying  all  athletic  exercises ;    so  strong   that 


74  LEONARDO  DA    VINCI. 

he  could  bend  a  horseshoe  in  his  hands ;  exceedingly 
fond  of  horses,  of  which  he  owned  several, —  he  still 
found  time  to  be  the  life  and  joy  of  the  brilliant 
society  of  Florence ;  always  leading,  always  fasci- 
nating with  his  intelligent  conversation  and  elegant 
address.  And  yet  the  ambitious  Leonardo  was  not 
satisfied  in  Florence.  The  Medici  did  not  encour- 
age him  as  they  did  Michael  Angelo.  Possibly 
they  felt  that  he  lacked  a  steady  and  dominant 
purpose.  He  finally  made  up  his  mind  to  try  his 
fortune  elsewhere,  and  wrote  the  following  letter 
to  Lodovico  Sforza,  Regent  of  Milan  :  — 

"  MY  MOST  ILLUSTRIOUS  LORD,  —  Having  seen 
and  duly  considered  the  experiments  of  all  those 
who  repute  themselves  masters  and  constructors  of 
warlike  instruments,  and  that  the  inventions  and 
operations  of  the  said  instruments  are  not  different 
from  those  in  common  use,  I  will  endeavor,  with- 
out derogating  from  any  one  else,  to  make  known 
to  your  Excellency  certain  secrets  of  my  own,  and, 
at  an  opportune  time,  I  shall  hope  to  put  them  into 
execution,  if  they  seem  valuable  to  you.  I  briefly 
note  these  things  below  :  — 

"  1.  I  have  a  method  of  making  very  light 
bridges,  fit  to  be  carried  most  easily,  with  which  to 
follow  the  flight  of  enemies  ;  and  others,  strong  and 
secure  against  fire  and  battle ;  easy  and  commodi- 
ous to  lift  up  and  to  place  in  position.  I  have 
methods  also  to  burn  and  destroy  those  of  the 
enemy. 

"  2.  I  know,  in  case  of  the  siege  of  a  place,  how 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI.  75 

to  take  away  the  water  from  the  ditches,  and  to 
make  an  infinite  variety  of  scaling-ladders  and 
other  instruments  pertinent  to  such  an  expedition. 

"4.  I  have  also  kinds  of  cannon  most  commo- 
dious and  easy  to  carry,  with  which  to  throw 
inflammable  matters,  whose  smoke  causes  great 
fright  to  the  enemy,  with  serious  injury  and 
confusion. 

"  5.  I  have  means,  by  excavations  and  straight  and 
winding  subterranean  ways,  to  come  to  any  given 
point  without  noise,  even  though  it  be  necessary 
to  pass  under  moats  and  rivers. 

"  8.  When  the  operations  of  artillery  are  impos- 
sible. I  shall  construct  mangonels,  balistae,  and 
other  engines  of  marvellous  efficacy,  and  out  of  the 
common  use  ;  and,  in  short,  according  to  the  variety 
of  events,  I  shall  build  various  and  infinite  means 
of  offence. 

"  9.  And  when  it  shall  happen  to  be  upon  the  sea, 
I  have  means  of  preparing  many  instruments  most 
efficient  in  attack  or  defence,  and  vessels  that  shall 
make  resistance  to  the  most  powerful  bombard- 
ment ;  and  powders  and  smokes. 

"10.  In  time  of  peace  I  believe  I  can  satisfy 
very  well  and  equal  all  others  in  architecture,  in 
designing  public  edifices  and  private  houses,  and 
in  conducting  water  from  one  place  to  another.  I 
can  carry  on  works  of  sculpture,  in  marble,  bronze, 
or  terra  cotta,  also  in  pictures.  I  can  do  what  can 


76  LEONARDO  DA    VINCI. 

be  done  equal  to  any  other,  whoever  he  may  be. 
'Also,  I  shall  undertake  the  execution  of  the  bronze 
horse,  which  will  be  the  immortal  glory  and  eternal 
honor  of  the  happy  memory  of  my  lord  your 
father,  and  of  the  illustrious  honor  of  Sforza." 
.  The  result  of  this  letter  was  a  summons  to  the 
court  at  Milan,  where  Lodovico,  though  dissolute, 
was  proud  to  surround  himself  with  the  most 
brilliant  men  and  women  of  the  age.  Leonardo 
took  with  him  a  silver  lyre,  made  in  the  shape  of 
a  horse's  head,  designed  by  himself,  on  which  he 
played  so  skilfully  that  the  duke  and  his  court 
were  enchanted.  "  Whatever  he  did,"  says  Vasari, 
"  bore  an  impress  of  harmony,  truthfulness,  good- 
ness, sweetness,  and  grace,  wherein  no  other  man 
could  ever  equal  him."  Such  a  union  of  gentle- 
ness and  sincerity  with  genius  !  Who  could  with- 
stand its  influence  ! 

At  Milan  Leonardo  remained  for  nineteen  years, 
and  here  some  of  his  most  remarkable  works  were 
done. 

One  of  the  first  pictures  painted  for  the  Regent 
was  a  portrait  of  a  favorite,  the  beautiful  Cecilia 
Gallerani,  a  gifted  woman,  skilled  in  music  and 
poetry.  Leonardo  painted  for  her  a  picture  of  the 
Virgin,  for  which  she  probably  was  the  model. 
The  infant  Saviour  is  represented  as  blessing  a  new- 
blown  Madonna  rose,  the  emblem  of  St.  Cecilia. 

The  next  portrait  —  it  is  now  in  the  Louvre  — 
was  that  of  another  beauty,  loved  by  the  duke, 
Lucrezia  Crivelli,  formerly  called  La  Belle  Feron- 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI.  77 

mere,  who  was  a  favorite  of  Francis  I.  "The 
face,"  says  Mr.  Sweetser,  "is  at  once  proud  and 
melancholy,  with  a  warm  and  brilliant  coloring  and 
soft  pure  lines,  the  head  full  of  light,  and  even  the 
shadows  transparent."  In  honor  of  both  these 
portraits  Latin  poems  were  written  by  the  poets  of 
the  time. 

Leonardo  also  painted  two  fine  portraits  of  the 
lawful  duke,  Grian  Galeazzo  Sforza,  and  his  wife, 
Isabella  of  Aragon,  the  latter  picture  "beyond  all 
description  beautiful  and  charming,"  now  preserved 
in  the  Ambrosian  Library.  When  these  persons 
were  married,  Leonardo  invented  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  the  guests  at  the  wedding  feast  a  mechan- 
ical device  called  "  The  Paradise,"  a  representation 
of  the  heavens  and  the  revolving  planets,  which 
opened  as  the  bride  and  bridegroom  approached, 
while  a  person  in  imitation  of  the  Deity  recited 
complimentary  verses. 

Leonardo  now  began  on  the  great  equestrian 
statue  of  the  warrior  Francesco  Sforza.  He  stud- 
ied ancient  works  of  art,  especially  the  equestrian 
statue  of  Marcus  Aurelius  in  Rome,  made  almost 
countless  drawings  of  horses  in  repose  or  on  the 
battle-field,  many  of  which  are  still  preserved  at 
Windsor  Castle,  studied  every  movement  of  live 
horses  and  every  muscle  of  dead  ones,  and  did  not 
complete  his  clay  model  for  ten  long  years.  A 
genius  like  Da  Vinci  spends  ten  years  on  the  model 
of  an  equestrian  statue,  and  yet  some  artists  of  the 
present  day,  men  and  women,  paint  and  mould 


78  LEONARDO  DA    VINCI. 

horses  or  human  beings  after  a  few  weeks  or  months 
of  study,  and  expect  to  win  fame ! 

When  the  clay  model  was  exhibited  in  public 
at  the  royal  wedding  of  the  sister  of  Gian  Gale- 
azzo  to  the  Emperor  Maximilian,  the  enthusiasm 
was  very  great.  All  Italy  talked  of  it,  and  poets 
and  critics  extolled  it  as  beyond  the  works  of 
Greece  or  Rome.  Unfortunately  the  ensuing  wars 
depleted  the  treasury  of  Milan,  and  prevented 
the  work  from  being  cast  in  bronze.  When  the 
French  entered  Milan  in  1499,  it  became  a  target 
for  the  archers.  Two  years  later  the  Duke  of 
Ferrara  asked  the  use  of  the  model  that  a  bronze 
horse  with  a  statue  of  himself  might  be  made ;  but 
the  King  of  France  refused,  and  the  model  finally 
disappeared. 

During  these  years  Leonardo  founded  the  Milan 
Academy.  Probably  many  of  the  manuscript  vol- 
umes which  he  left  were  notes  of  lectures  de- 
livered to  the  students.  He  must  have  spoken 
to  them  on  botany,  optics,  mechanics,  astronomy, 
hydrostatics,  anatomy,  perspective,  proportion,  and 
other  matters.  He  wrote  a  book  on  the  anatomy 
of  the  horse.  "He  also,"  says  Vasari,  "filled  a 
book  with  drawings  in  red  crayons,  outlined  with 
the  pen,  all  copies  made  with  the  utmost  care  from 
bodies  dissected  by  his  own  hand.  In  this  book  he 
set  forth  the  entire  structure,  arrangement  and 
disposition  of  the  bones,  to  which  he  afterwards 
added  all  the  nerves,  in  their  due  order,  and  next 
supplied  the  muscles,  of  which  the  first  are  affixed 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI.  79 

to  the  bones,  the  second  give  the  power  of  cohesion 
or  holding  firmly,  and  the  third  impart  the  motion." 

Leonardo  said  in  his  notes,  "  The  painter  who 
has  obtained  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  nature  of 
the  tendons  and  muscles,  and  of  those  parts  which 
contain  the  most  of  them,  will  know  to  a  certainty, 
in  giving  a  particular  motion  to  any  part  of  the 
body,  which  and  how  many  of  the  muscles  give 
rise  and  contribute  to  it ;  which  of  them,  by  swell- 
ing, occasion  their  shortening,  and  which  of  the 
cartilages  they  surround.  He  will  not  imitate  those 
who,  in  all  the  different  attitudes  they  adopt  or 
invent,  make  use  of  the  same  muscles  in  the  arms, 
back,  or  chest,  or  any  other  parts.  ...  It  is  neces- 
sary that  a  painter  should  be  a  good  anatomist, 
that  in  his  attitudes  and  gestures  he  may  be  able 
to  design  the  naked  parts  of  the  human  frame, 
according  to  the  just  rules  of  the  anatomy  of  the 
nerves,  bones,  and  muscles ;  and  that,  in  his  different 
positions,  he  may  know  what  particular  nerve  or 
muscle  is  the  cause  of  such  a  particular  movement, 
in  order  that  he  may  make  that  only  marked  and 
apparent,  and  not  all  the  rest,  as  many  artists  are 
in  the  habit  of  doing ;  who,  that  they  may  appear 
great  designers,  make  the  naked  limbs  stiff  and, 
without  grace,  so  that  they  have  more  the  appear- 
ance of  a  bag  of  nuts  than  the  human  superficies, 
or,  rather,  more  like  a  bundle  of  radishes  than 
naked  muscles." 

Leonardo  irrigated  the  dry  plains  of  Lombardy 
by  utilizing  the  waters  of  the  Ticino  River,  visiting 


80  LEONARDO  DA   VINCI. 

many  cities  and  towns  throughout  Lombardy  for 
this  purpose,  and  carefully  studying  the  canals  of 
Egypt  under  the  Ptolemies.  He  studied  ancient 
architecture  also.  In  his  epitaph,  composed  in  his 
lifetime,  he  calls  himself,  "The  admirer  of  the 
ancients,  and  their  grateful  disciple.  One  thing  is 
lacking  to  me,  their  science  of  proportion.  I  have 
done  what  I  could  ;  may  posterity  pardon  me." 

He  designed  a  palace  for  Count  Giovanni  Melzi, 
at  Vaprio,  which  became  a  favorite  home  for  him, 
especially  in  the  time  of  war  —  the  residence  of  his 
beloved  pupil,  Francesco  Melzi. 

In  1492,  after  Leonardo  had  been  eleven  years 
at  the  Court  of  Milan,  Lodovico,  unscrupulous 
and  immoral,  married  the  gentle  and  saintly 
Beatrice  d'Este.  Leonardo  conducted  the  grand 
wedding  festivities,  and  designed  and  decorated 
the  bride's  apartments  in  the  Castello  della  Rocca, 
making  a  beautiful  bath-room  in  the  garden, 
adorned  with  colored  marbles  and  a  statue  of 
Diana.  While  the  regent  in  no  wise  discontinued 
his  profligate  habits,  he  yet  desired  to  please  his 
wife,  by  gratifying  her  taste  for  religious  things. 
As  she  had  shown  an  especial  fondness  for  the 
Dominican  church  and  convent  of  Santa  Maria 
delle  Grazie,  Lodovico  ordered  them  reconstructed 
and  embellished  for  her.  In  the  refectory,  the 
artist  painted  kneeling  portraits  of  Beatrice,  her 
husband,  and  their  two  little  children,  Maximilian 
and  Francesco ;  but  they  have  long  since  faded. 

About  the  year  1496,  Leonardo  began  his  im- 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI.  81 

mortal  work  in  the  refectory,  The  "  Last  Supper." 
Here,  where  daily  the  sweet  and  broken-hearted 
wife  came  to  remain  for  hours  in  meditation  and 
prayer  before  the  tomb  of  the  Duchess  Bianca, 
from  which  she  sometimes  had  to  be  removed  by 
force,  Leonardo  came  daily  to  his  masterpiece. 
Sometimes  he  would  go  to  his  work  at  daybreak, 
and  never  think  of  descending  from  his  scaffolding 
to  eat  or  drink  till  night,  so  completely  absorbed 
was  he  in  his  work.  "At  other  times,"  says  Ban- 
dello,  "  he  would  remain  three  or  four  days  with- 
out touching  it,  only  coming  for  an  hour  or  two, 
and  remaining  with  crossed  arms  contemplating 
his  figures,  as  if  criticising  them  himself.  I  have 
also  seen  him  at  midday,  when  the  sun  in  the 
zenith  causes  all  the  streets  of  Milan  to  be  de- 
serted, set  out  in  all  haste  from  the  citadel,  where 
he  was  modelling  his  colossal  horse,  and,  without 
seeking  the  shade,  take  the  shortest  road  to  the 
convent,  where  he  would  add  a  few  strokes  to  one 
of  his  heads,  and  then  return  immediately." 

Leonardo  made  a  cartoon  of  the  whole  picture, 
and  separate  studies  of  each  figure.  Ten  of  these 
a*re  now  in  the  Hermitage  in  St.  Petersburg. 

He  was  long  absorbed  in  his  head  of  Christ. 
He  used  to  say  that  his  hand  trembled  whenever 
he  attempted  to  paint  it.  At  last,  in  despair,  he 
asked  counsel  of  a  friend.  Bernardo  Zenale,  who 
comforted  him  by  saying,  "Oh,  Leonardo,  the 
error  into  which  thou  hast  fallen  is  one  from 
which  only  the  Divine  Being  himself  can  deliver 


82  LEONARDO  DA    VINCI. 

thee ;  for  it  is  not  in  thy  power  nor  in  that  of  any 
one  else  to  give  greater  divinity  and  beauty  to  any 
figures  than  thou  hast  done  to  these  of  James  the 
Greater  and  the  Less  ;  therefore,  be  of  good  cheer, 
and  leave  the  Christ  imperfect,  for  thou  wilt  never 
be  able  to  accomplish  the  Christ  after  such  apos- 
tles." 

Leonardo  finished  the  work  in  about  three  years. 
Beatrice,  as  might  have  been  expected  from  such 
an  ill-assorted  union,  died  of  sorrow  in  five  years 
after  her  marriage.  Lodovico,  as  has  been  often 
the  case  before  and  since  in  the  world's  history, 
realized  too  late  the  wrong  he  had  done,  and  now 
strove  to  remedy  it  by  causing  a  hundred  masses  a 
day  to  be  said  for  her  soul,  shutting  himself  up  in 
remorse  for  two  weeks  in  a  chamber  hung  with 
black,  only  coming  forth  to  do  penance  at  the 
sanctuaries  where  his  lovely  and  neglected  wife 
had  worshipped.  He  now  wished  to  make  her  last 
resting-place,  Santa  Maria  delle  Grazie,  as  beauti- 
ful as  possible,  and  hastened  Leonardo  at  his  work 
on  the  "Last  Supper  "that  he  might  see  it  com- 
pleted, meantime  raising  a  magnificent  tomb  to  the 
memory  of  his  neglected  Beatrice. 

The  prior  of  the  convent  could  not  understand 
why  Leonardo  should  meditate  over  his  work,  and, 
likewise  in  haste  to  have  the  picture  finished, 
complained  to  Lodovico,  who  courteously  entreated 
the  artist  to  go  on  as  rapidly  as  possible.  Vasari 
says,  "  Leonardo,  knowing  the  prince  to  be  intelli- 
gent and  judicious,  determined  to  explain  himself 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI.  83 

fully  on  the  subject  with  him,  although  he  had 
never  chosen  to  do  so  with  the  prior.  He  there- 
fore discoursed  with  him  at  some  length  respecting 
art,  and  made  it  perfectly  manifest  to  his  compre- 
hension that  men  of  genius  are  sometimes  produ- 
cing most  when  they  seem  to  be  laboring  least,  their 
minds  being  occupied  in  the  elucidation  of  their 
ideas,  and  in  the  completion  of  those  conceptions 
to  which  they  afterwards  give  form  and  expression 
with  the  hand.  He  further  informed  the  duke 
that  there  were  still  wanting  to  him  two  heads, 
one  of  which,  that  of  the  Saviour,  he  could  not 
hope  to  find  on  earth.  .  .  . 

"The  second  head  still  wanting  was  that  of 
Judas,  which  also  caused  him  some  anxiety,  since 
he  did  not  think  it  possible  to  imagine  a  form  of 
feature  that  should  properly  render  the  counte- 
nance of  a  man  who,  after  so  many  benefits  re- 
ceived from  his  Master,  had  possessed  a  heart  so 
depraved  as  to  be  capable  of  betraying  his  Lord, 
and  the  Creator  of  the  world ;  with  regard  to  that 
second,  however,  he  would  make  search,  and  after 
all  —  if  he  could  find  no  better  —  he  need  never  be 
at  any  great  loss,  for  there  would  always  be  the  head 
of  that  troublesome  and  impertinent  prior.  This 
made  the  duke  laugh  with  all  his  heart ;  he  declared 
Leonardo  to  be  completely  in  the  right :  and  the 
poor  prior,  utterly  confounded,  went  away  to  drive 
on  the  digging  in  his  garden,  and  left  Leonardo  in 
peace." 

The  "  Last  Supper  "  was  painted  in  oils  instead 


84  LEONARDO  DA    VINCI. 

of  fresco,  and  soon  began  to  fade.  In  1515,  when 
Francis  I.  was  in  Milan,  he  was  so  impressed  with 
the  picture  that  he  determined  to  carry  it  back  to 
France,  and  tried  to  find  architects  who  could 
secure  it  from  injury  by  defences  of  wood  and  iron 
so  that  it  could  be  transported,  but  none  could  be 
found  able  to  do  it,  and  the  project  was  abandoned. 
The  painting  was  soon  damaged  by  the  refectory 
lying  for  some  time  under  water.  Later  one  of  the 
monks  made  a  doorway  through  it,  cutting  off  the 
feet  of  Christ.  In  1726  an  artist  named  Belotti 
restored  (?)  it,  leaving  nothing  untouched  but  the 
sky.  His  work  proved  unsatisfactory,  and  Mazza 
repainted  everything  except  the  heads  of  Matthew, 
Thaddeus,  and  Simon.  The  indignant  people  soon 
compelled  him  to  cease,  and  the  prior  who  had 
permitted  it  was  banished  from  the  convent. 

In  1796,  when  Napoleon  entered  Italy,  the 
troops  used  the  refectory  as  a  stable.  Three  or 
four  years  later,  it  again  lay  under  water  for  two 
weeks.  At  present,  one  is  able  to  perceive  only  the 
general  design  as  the  work  of  Leonardo.  Excel- 
lent copies  were  made  by  Da  Vinci's  pupils,  so 
that  the  great  picture  has  found  its  way  into 
thousands  of  homes. 

The  Saviour  and  his  apostles  are  seated  at  a  long 
table,  in  a  stately  hall.  On  the  left  is  Bartholo- 
mew ;  next,  James  the  Less ;  then  Andrew,  Peter, 
Judas  holding  the  money-bag,  John,  with  Christ  in 
the  centre,  Thomas  on  his  right  hand,  then  James 
the  Greater,  Philip,  Matthew,  Thaddeus,  and  Simon. 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI.  85 

The  moment  chosen  by  the  painter  is  that  given  by 
Matthew :  "  And  as  they  did  eat,  he  said,  Verily 
I  say  unto  you,  that  one  of  you  shall  betray  me. 
And  they  were  exceeding  sorrowful,  and  began 
every  one  of  them  to  say  unto  him,  Lord,  is  it  I  ?  " 

Mrs.  C.  W.  Heaton  says  of  this  picture,  in  her 
valuable  life  of  Da  Vinci,  "In  his  dramatic  ren- 
dering of  the  disciples,  Leonardo  has  shown  the 
boldest  and  grandest  naturalism.  They  are  all  of 
them  real,  living  men  with  passions  like  unto  us  — 
passions  called  for  the  moment  by  the  fearful  words 
of  the  Master,  '  One  of  you  shall  betray  me,'  into 
full  and  various  play." 

Most  who  visit  Milan  to  see  the  lace-work  in 
stone  of  its  exquisite  cathedral,  go  also  to  the 
famous  painting  which  tells  alike  the  story  of  a 
great  artist  struggling  to  put  immortal  thoughts 
into  his  faces,  and  the  story  of  the  remorse  of  a 
human  being  in  breaking  the  heart  of  a  lovely 
woman.  Had  it  not  been  to  atone  to  Beatrice, 
probably  the  "Last  Supper"  would  never  have 
been  painted  in  Santa  Maria  delle  Grazie.  Thus 
strangely  has  the  bitterness  of  one  soul  led  to  the 
joy  and  inspiration  of  thousands  ! 

In  1498,  Louis  XII.  came  to  the  throne  of 
France,  and  laid  claim  to  the  duchy  of  Milan, 
enforcing  his  claim  by  arms.  Lodovico  fled,  but 
was  captured  by  the  French,  and  kept  a  prisoner 
for  ten  years,  until  his  death.  Leonardo  went 
back  to  his  old  home  in  Florence,  taking  with  him 
two  persons,  his  friend  Luca  Paciolo,  who  had 


86  LEONARDO  DA    VINCI. 

lived  with  him  three  years  at  Milan,  the  author  of 
De  Divina  Proportione,  for  which  book  the  artist 
made  sixty  drawings  ;  and  his  beautiful  pupil  Salai, 
his  son  as  he  called  him,  "  a  youth  of  singular  grace 
and  beauty  of  person,  with  curling  and  wavy  hair, 
a  feature  of  personal  beauty  by  which  Leonardo 
was  greatly  pleased."  From  this  dear  disciple  the 
artist  painted  many  of  his  angels'  heads. 

Florence  had  changed  since  he  went  away, 
scarcely  more  than  a  boy.  Now  he  was  in  middle 
life,  forty-eight  years  old,  the  famous  painter  of 
the  "Last  Supper,"  the  polished  and  renowned 
scholar.  His  first  work  on  his  return  was  an  altar- 
piece  for  the  Annunciata  Church, — the  Madonna, 
St.  Anna,  and  the  infant  Christ.  The  cartoon,  now 
in  the  Eoyal  Academy  at  London,  caused  the  great- 
est delight.  "  When  finished,  the  chamber  wherein 
it  stood  was  crowded  for  two  days  by  men  and 
women,  old  and  young,  as  if  going  to  a  solemn 
festival,  all  hastening  to  behold  this  marvel  of 
Leonardo's,  which  amazed  the  whole  population." 

He  now  painted  two  noble  Florentine  ladies, 
Ginevra  Benci,  a  famous  beauty,  and  the  Mona 
Lisa,  the  third  wife  of  Francesco  del  Giocondo, 
the  latter  of  whom  it  is  conjectured  that  Leonardo 
loved. 

Vasari  says,  "Whoever  shall  desire  to  see  how 
far  art  can  imitate  nature,  may  do  so  to  perfection 
in  this  head,  wherein  every  peculiarity  that  could 
be  depicted  by  the  utmost  subtlety  of  the  pencil 
has  been  faithfully  reproduced.  The  eyes  have 


LEONARDO  DA   VINCI.  87 

the  lustrous  brightness  and  moisture  which  is  seen 
in  life,  and  around  them  are  those  pale,  red,  and 
slightly  livid  circles,  also  proper  to  nature,  with 
the  lashes,  which  can  only  be  copied  as  these  are 
with  the  greatest  difficulty ;  the  eyebrows  also  are 
represented  with  the  closest  exactitude,  where 
fuller  and  where  more  thinly  set,  with  the  separate 
hairs  delineated  as  they  issue  from  the  skin,  every 
turn  being  followed  and  all  the  pores  exhibited  in 
a  manner  that  could  not  be  more  natural  than  it  is ; 
the  nose,  with  its  beautiful  and  delicately  roseate 
nostrils,  might  be  easily  believed  to  be  alive ;  the 
mouth,  admirable  in  its  outline,  has  the  lips  uniting 
the  rose-tints  of  their  color  with  that  of  the  face 
in  the  utmost  perfection,  and  the  carnation  of  the 
cheek  does  not  appear  to  be  painted,  but  truly  of 
flesh  and  blood ;  he  who  looks  earnestly  at  the  pit 
of  the  throat  cannot  but  believe  that  he  sees  the 
beating  of  the  pulses,  and  it  may  be  truly  said 
that  this  work  is  painted  in  a  manner  well  calcu- 
lated to  make  the  boldest  master  tremble,  and 
astonishes  all  who  behold  it,  however  well  accus- 
tomed to  the  marvels  of  art. 

"  Mona  Lisa  was  exceedingly  beautiful ;  and 
while  Leonardo  was  painting  her  portrait,  he  took 
the  precaution  of  keeping  some  one  constantly  near 
her,  to  sing  or  play  on  instruments,  or  to  jest  and 
otherwise  amuse  her,  to  the  end  that  she  might 
continue  cheerful,  and  so  that  her  face  might  not 
exhibit  the  melancholy  expression  often  imparted 
by  painters  to  the  likenesses  they  take.  In  this 


88  LEONARDO  DA    VINCI. 

portrait  of  Leonardo's,  on  the  contrary,  there  is  so 
pleasing  an  expression,  and  a  smile  so  sweet,  that 
while  looking  at  it  one  thinks  it  rather  divine  than 
human,  and  it  has  ever  been  esteemed  a  wonderful 
work,  since  life  itself  could  exhibit  no  other  appear- 
ance." 

No  wonder  Grimm  says,  "  He  who  has  seen  the 
Mona  Lisa  smile  is  followed  forever  by  this  smile, 
just  as  he  is  followed  by  Lear's  fury,  Macbeth's 
ambition,  Hamlet's  melancholy,  and  Iphigenia's 
touching  purity." 

Pater  says  of  the  Mona  Lisa,  '•' '  La  Gioconda '  is, 
in  the  truest  sense,  Leonardo's  masterpiece,  the 
revealing  instance  of  his  mode  of  thought  and 
work.  In  suggestiveness,  only  the  'Melancholia'  of 
Dtirer  is  comparable  to  it ;  and  no  crude  symbolism 
disturbs  the  effect  of  its  subdued  and  graceful 
mystery.  We  all  know  the  face  and  hands  of  the 
figure,  set  in  its  marble  chair,  in  that  cirque  of 
fantastic  webs,  as  in  some  faint  light  under  sea. 
Perhaps  of  all  ancient  pictures  time  has  chilled  it 
least. 

"The  fancy  of  a  perpetual  life,  sweeping  together 
ten  thousand  experiences,  is  an  old  one  ;  and  mod- 
ern thought  has  conceived  the  idea  of  humanity 
as  wrought  upon  by,  and  summing  up  in  itself,  all 
modes  of  thought  and  life.  Certainly  Lady  Lisa 
might  stand  as  the  embodiment  of  the  old  fancy, 
the  symbol  of  the  modern  idea." 

One   feels   with    Michelet,  when   he    says,    "It 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI.  89 

fascinates  and  absorbs  me.  I  go  to  it  in  spite  of 
myself,  as  the  bird  is  drawn  to  the  serpent."  I 
have  found  myself  going  day  after  day  to  the 
Louvre  to  linger  before  two  masterpieces  ;  to  grow 
better  through  the  womanhood  of  the  Venus  de 
Milo,  and  to  rest  in  the  peaceful,  contented  smile  of 
the  Mona  Lisa.  Nobody  can  forget  the  perfect 
hand.  One  seems  to  feel  the  delicacy  of  the  loving 
touch  which  Leonardo  gave  as  he  painted  through 
those  long  yet  short  four  years,  leaving  the  portrait, 
as  he  declared,  unfinished,  because  of  his  high  ideal 
of  what  a  painting  should  be.  The  husband  did 
not  purchase  the  picture  of  the  artist  —  did  he  not 
value  the  beauty  ?  It  was  finally  sold  to  Francis 
I.,  for  four  thousand  gold  crowns,  an  enormous  sum 
at  that  day. 

After  Da  Vinci  had  been  two  years  in  Florence, 
Caesar  Borgia,  the  son  of  Pope  Alexander  VI.,  ap- 
pointed him  architect  and  general  engineer.  He 
travelled  through  Central  Italy,  making  ramparts 
and  stairways  for  the  citadel  of  Urbino,  machinery 
at  Pesaro,  designing  a  house  and  better  methods  of 
transporting  grapes  at  Cesena,  and  finer  gates  at 
Cesenatico.  At  one  place  he  lingered  to  enjoy  the 
regular  cadence  of  the  waves  beating  on  the  shore ; 
at  another,  his  soul  filled  with  music,  he  was 
soothed  by  the  murmur  of  the  fountains.  But 
Caesar  was  soon  obliged  to  flee  into  Spain,  and 
Leonardo  could  no  longer  hold  the  position  of 
engineer. 

Pietro  Soderini,  who  had  been  elected  gonfalo- 


90  LEONARDO  DA    VINCI. 

niere  for  life,  was  the  friend  of  both  Leonardo  and 
Michael  Angelo.  He  wished  to  have  these  two 
greatest  artists  paint  each  a  wall  in  the  Hall  of 
the  Palazzo  Vecchio.  Michael  Angelo  chose  for  his 
subject  a  group  of  soldiers  surprised  by  the  enemy 
while  bathing  in  the  Arno  ;  Leonardo,  a  troop  of 
horsemen  fighting  round  a  standard,  a  scene  from 
the  battle  of  Anghiari,  fought  by  the  Florentines 
'against  the  North  Italians.  Vasari  says,  "Not 
only  are  rage,  disdain,  and  the  desire  for  revenge 
apparent  in  the  men,  but  in  the  horses  also ;  two 
of  those  animals,  with  their  fore-legs  intertwined, 
are  attacking  each  other  with  their  teeth,  no  less 
fiercely  than  do  the  cavaliers  who  are  fighting  for 
the  standard." 

Vasari  thinks  it  "  scarcely  possible  adequately  to 
describe  .  .  .  the  wonderful  mastery  he  exhibits 
in  the  forms  and  movements  of  the  horses.  .  .  . 
The  muscular  development,  the  animation  of  their 
movements,  and  their  exquisite  beauty,  are  ren- 
dered with  the  utmost  fidelity." 

When  the  rival  cartoons  of  Michael  Angelo  and 
Da  Vinci  were  publicly  exhibited,  the  excitement 
was  great  between  the  followers  of  each  artist. 
When  Da  Vinci  began  to  paint  upon  the  wall,  in 
oils,  as  in  the  "  Last  Supper,"  the  colors  so  sank  into 
it  that  he  abandoned  the  work.  Soderini  accused 
him  of  having  received  money  and  not  rendering 
an  equivalent,  which  so  wounded  the  pride,  of  the 
artist  that  his  friends  raised  the  amount  which 
had  been  advanced  to  him,  and  offered  it  to  the 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI.  91 

gonfaloniere,  who  generously  refused  to  accept  it. 
Da  Vinci  had  already  become  offended  with  Sode- 
rini's  treasurer,  who  offered  him  a  portion  of  his 
pay  in  copper  money.  Leonardo  would  not  take 
it,  saying,  "  I  am  no  penny-painter." 

In  1504,  Da  Vinci's  father  died,  and  the  artist 
became  involved  in  lawsuits  with  the  other  twelve 
children,  who  seem  to  have  disputed  his  share  in 
the  property. 

At  this  time  Leonardo  made  drawings  for  the 
raising  of  the  Church  of  San  Giovanni  (the  Bap- 
tistery), and  the  placing  of  steps  beneath  it.  "  He 
supported  his  assertions  with  reasons  so  persuasive 
that  while  he  spoke  the  undertaking  seemed  feasi- 
ble, although  every  one  of  his  hearers,  when  he 
had  departed,  could  see  for  himself  that  such  a 
thing  was  impossible."  They  could  not  understand 
that  they  had  a  genius  in  their  midst  some  centu- 
ries in  advance  of  his  age.  He  made  three  bronze 
figures  over  the  portal  of  the  Baptistery,  "without 
doubt  the  most  beautiful  castings  that  have  been 
seen  in  these  latter  days." 

Tired  of  lawsuits,  and  his  ineffectual  efforts 
toward  the  raising  of  the  Baptistery,  he  gladly  went 
back  to  Milan,  having  been  invited  thither  by 
Marechal  de  Chaumont,  the  French  governor,  after 
an  absence  in  Florence  of  six  years.  He  seems  to 
have  been  straitened  in  circumstances,  for  he  had 
but  thirty  crowns  left,  and  of  these  he  generously 
gave  thirteen  to  make  up  the  marriage  portion  of 
the  sister  of  his  beloved  Salai. 


92  LEONARDO  DA    VINCI. 

For  seven  years  during  this  second  sojourn  in 
Milan,  he  was  prosperous  and  happy.  He  built 
large  docks  and  basins,  planned  many  mills,  en- 
larged and  improved  the  great  Martesan  canal,  two 
hundred  miles  long,  "  which  brings  the  waters  of 
the  Adda  through  the  Valtellina  and  across  the 
Chiavenna  district,  contributing  greatly  to  the  fer- 
tility of  the  garden  of  Northern  Italy,"  and 
painted  several  pictures.  "  La  Monaca,"  now  in 
the  Pitti  Palace,  is  the  half-length  figure  of  a 
young  nun.  Taine  says,  "The  face  is  colorless 
excepting  the  powerful  and  strange  red  lips,  and 
the  whole  physiognomy  is  calm,  with  a  slight  ex- 
pression of  disquietude.  This  is  not  an  abstract 
being,  emanating  from  the  painter's  brain,  but  an 
actual  woman  who  has  lived,  a  sister  of  Mona 
Lisa,  as  complex,  as  full  of  inward  contrasts,  and 
as  inexplicable." 

"Flora,"  a  beautiful  woman  in  blue  drapery, 
holding  a  flower  in  her  left  hand,  believed  by 
many  to  be  a  portrait  of  Diana  of  Poictiers,  is  at 
the  Hague,  where  the  Hollanders  call  it  "  Frivol- 
ity "  or  "  Vanity."  Leda,  the  bride  of  Jupiter,  with 
the  twins,  Castor  and  Pollux,  "playing  among  the 
shell-chips  of  their  broken  egg,"  is  also  at  the  Hague. 

Probably  the  celebrated  La  Vierye  aux  ftochers 
("The  Virgin  among  the  Books")  was  painted  at 
this  time.  Of  this  Theophile  Gautier  says,  "  The 
aspect  of  the  Virgin  is  mysterious  and  charming. 
A  grotto  of  basaltic  rocks  shelters  the  divine 
group,  who  are  sitting  on  the  margin  of  a  clear 


LEONARDO  DA   VINCI.  93 

spring,  in  the  transparent  depths  of  which  we  see 
the  pebbles  of  its  bed.  Through  the  arcade  of  the 
grotto,  we  discover  a  rocky  landscape,  with  a  few 
scattered  trees,  and  crossed  by  a  stream,  on  the 
banks  of  which  rises  a  village.  All  this  is  of  a 
color  as  indefinable  as  those  mysterious  countries 
one  traverses  in  a  dream,  and  accords  marvellously 
with  the  figures.  What  more  adorable  type  than 
that  of  the  Madonna !  it  is  especially  Leonardo's, 
and  does  not  in  any  way  recall  the  Virgins  of 
Perugino  or  Raphael.  Her  head  is  spherical  in 
form ;  the  forehead  well  developed ;  the  fine  oval 
of  her  cheeks  is  gracefully  rounded  so  as  to  en- 
close a  chin  most  delicately  curved ;  the  eyes  with 
lowered  eyelids  encircled  with  shadow,  and  the 
nose,  not  in  a  line  with  the  forehead,  like  that  of  a 
Grecian  statue,  but  still  finely  shaped  ;  with  nostrils 
tenderly  cut,  and  trembling  as  though  her  breath- 
ing made  them  palpitate  ;  the  mouth  a  little  large, 
it  is  true,  but  smiling  with  a  deliciously  enigmatic 
expression  that  Da  Vinci  gives  to  his  female  faces, 
a  tiny  shade  of  mischief  mingling  with  the  purity 
and  goodness.  The  hair  is  long,  loose,  and  silky, 
and  falls  in  crisp  meshes  around  the  shadow-soft- 
ened cheeks,  according  with  the  half-tints  with 
incomparable  grace." 

This  picture  was  originally  on  wood,  but  has 
been  transferred  to  canvas.  There  are  three  pic- 
tures of  this  scene ;  the  one  in  the  collection  of  the 
Duke  of  Suffolk  is  believed  to  be  the  original, 
while  that  in  the  Louvre  is  best  known. 


94  LEONARDO  DA    VINCI. 

Of  the  Virgin  seated  on  the  knees  of  St.  Anne, 
now  in  the  Louvre,  Taine  says,  "In  the  little 
Jesus  of  the  picture  of  St.  Anne,  a  shoulder,  a 
cheek,  a  temple,  alone  emerge  from  the  shadowy 
depth.  Leonardo  da  Vinci  was  a  great  musician. 
Perhaps  he  found  in  that  gradation  and  change  of 
color,  in  that  vague  yet  charming  magic  of  chiaros- 
.curo,  an  effect  resembling  the  crescendoes  and 
decrescendoes  of  grand  musical  works." 

"  St.  John  the  Baptist,"  in  the  Louvre,  is  one  of 
the  few  pictures,  among  the  many  attributed  to 
Leonardo;  which  critics  regard  as  authentic.  "  St. 
Sebastian,"  now  in  the  Hermitage  in  St.  Peters- 
burg, was  purchased  by  the  Tsar  of  Kussia  in  1860, 
for  twelve  thousand  dollars. 

When  the  French  were  driven  out  of  Lombardy, 
Da  Vinci  left  Milan,  in  1514,  and,  taking  his 
devoted  pupils,  Salai,  Francesco  Melzi,  and  a  few 
others  with  him,  started  for  Rome,  whither  Michael 
Angelo  and  Raphael  had  already  gone.  Leo  X.  was 
on  the  papal  throne :  he  cordially  welcomed  him, 
and  bade  him  "  work  for  the  glory  of  God,  Italy, 
Leo  X.,  and  Leonardo  da  Vinci."  However,  the 
pope  gave  him  very  little  to  do.  "  The  pontiff," 
says  Vasari,  "  was  much  inclined  to  philosophical  in- 
quiry, and  was  more  especially  addicted  to  the  study 
of  alchemy.  Leonardo,  therefore,  having  composed 
a  kind  of  paste  from  wax,  made  of  this,  while  it 
was  still  in  its  half-liquid  state,  certain  figures  of 
animals,  entirely  hollow  and  exceedingly  slight  in 
texture,  which  he  then  filled  with  air.  When  he 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI.  95 

blew  into  these  figures  he  could  make  them  fly 
through  the  air,  but  when  the  air  within  had 
escaped  from  them  they  fell  to  the  earth. 

"  One  day  the  vine-dresser  of  the  Belvedere 
found  a  very  curious  lizard,  and  for  this  creature 
Leonardo  constructed  wings  made  from  the  skins 
of  other  lizards,  flayed  for  the  purpose  ;  into  these 
wings  he  put  quicksilver,  so  that  when  the  animal 
walked  the  wings  moved  also,  with  a  tremulous 
motion ;  he  then  made  eyes,  horns,  and  a  beard  for 
the  creature,  which  he  tamed  and  kept  in  a  case ; 
he  would  then  show  it  to  the  friends  who  came  to 
visit  him,  and  all  who  saw  it  ran  away  terrified." 

When  the  pope  asked  him  to  paint  a  picture, 
Leonardo  immediately  began  to  distil  oils  and 
herbs  for  the  varnish,  whereupon  the  pontiff  ex- 
claimed, "  Alas !  this  man  will  assuredly  do  noth- 
ing at  all,  since  he  is  thinking  of  the  end  before 
he  has  made  a  beginning  to  his  work."  It  is  sup- 
posed that  Leonardo  painted  for  Leo  X.  the  "  Holy 
Family  of  St.  Petersburg,"  with  the  bride  of 
Giuliano  de  Medici  as  the  St.  Catherine. 

Louis  XII.  of  France  having  died,  the  brilliant 
young  Francis  I.  succeeded  him  January  1,  1515, 
and  soon  after  won  back  Lombardy  to  himself  in 
battle.  At  once  Leonardo,  who  had  been  painter 
to  King  Louis  while  in  Milan,  joined  himself  to 
Francis,  not  wishing  to  remain  in  Rome.  He  was 
received  by  that  monarch  with  the  greatest  delight, 
and  given  the  Chateau  of  Cloux  with  its  woods, 
meadows,  and  fish-ponds,  just  outside  the  walls  of 


96  LEONARDO  DA    VINCI. 

the  king's  castle  at  Amboise.  Here  he  abode  with 
his  dear  pupils,  who  were  content  to  live  in  any 
country  so  they  were  with  Da  Vinci ;  and  was 
allowed  a  pension  of  seven  hundred  crowns  of  gold 
and  the  title  of  Painter  to  the  King. 

He  was  sixty-three.  He  had  done  many  great 
things,  but  now,  with  ease  and  every  comfort,  per- 
chance his  genius  would  be  more  brilliant  than 
ever.  When  about  this  age,  Michael  Angelo  had 
completed  his  wonderful  statues  in  the  Medici 
chapel,  and  later  even  painted  his  "Last  Judg- 
ment "  and  planned  the  great  dome  of  St.  Peter's. 
But  Leonardo,  the  versatile,  luxury  -loving,  "  divine 
Leonardo."  no  longer  urged  to  duty  by  necessity, 
did  nothing  further  for  the  world.  He  mingled  in 
the  gayeties  of  the  court,  walked  arm  in  arm  in 
his  gardens  with  the  beautiful  Sala'i,  his  long  white 
hair  falling  to  his  shoulders,  and  made  a  unique 
automaton  for  the  great  festivities  of  the  conquer- 
ing young  king  at  Pavia,  a  lion  filled  with  hidden 
machinery  by  means  of  which  it  walked  up  to  the 
throne,  and,  opening  its  breast,  showed  it  filled 
with  a  great  number  of  fleurs-de-lis.  He  soon  fell 
into  a  kind  of  languor  that  presaged  the  sure  com- 
ing of  death. 

In  early  life  he  had  been  so  devoted  to  science 
that  Vasari  tells  us  "  by  this  means  he  conceived 
such  heretical  ideas  that  he  did  not  belong  to  any 
religion,  but  esteemed  it  better  to  be  a  philosopher 
than  a  Christian."  Now  he  turned  his  thoughts  to- 
ward the  Catholic  church,  and  made  his  will,  which 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI.  97 

recommends  his  soul  "to  God,  the  glorious  Virgin 
Mary,  his  lordship  St.  Michael,  and  all  the  beauti- 
ful angels  and  saints  of  Paradise."  He  wishes 
that  at  his  obsequies  "there  shall  be  sixty  torches 
carried  by  sixty  poor  persons,  who  shall  be  paid 
for  carrying  them  according  to  the  discretion  of 
the  said  Melzi,  which  torches  shall  be  shared  among 
the  four  churches  above  named." 

To  his  beloved  pupils,  ever  with  him,  he  gives 
his  property.  Nine  days  after  this,  says  Vasari, 
May  2,  1519,  at  the  age  of  sixty-seven,  Leonardo 
died  in  the  arms  of  his  devoted  King,  Francis  I. ; 
but  later  historians  have  considered  this  doubtful. 
He  was  buried  under  the  flag-stones  in  the  Church 
of  St.  Florentin  at  Amboise. 

In  the  religious  wars  Avhich  followed,  the  church 
was  demolished,  the  gravestones  sold,  and  the  lead 
coffins  melted  for  their  metal.  Many  persons  have 
tried  to  find  the  grave  of  the  great  master,  and  M. 
Arsene  Houssaye  made  a  last  and  perhaps  success- 
ful attempt  in  1863.  He  says,  "More  than  one 
Italian  had  gone  to  Amboise  for  the  purpose  of 
finding  the  tomb  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  and  had 
gazed  sadly  on  the  spot  where  the  church  once 
stood,  now  covered  by  thick  growing  covert. 

"The  gardener's  daughter  had  been  often  ques- 
tioned, and  it  was  she  who  first  gave  me  the  idea, 
some  years  ago,  of  seeking  for  the  tomb  of  the 
painter  of  the  '  Last  Supper,'  but  I  do  not  know 
whether  the  fact  of  her  having  the  painter's  name 
sometimes  on  her  lips  arose  from  the  fact  of  her 


98  LEONARDO   DA    VINCI. 

hearing  him  spoken  of  by  her  father  or  by  visitors. 
She  it  was  who  pointed  out  to  me  the  spot  where 
the  great  painter  of  Francis  I.  might  be  found ;  a 
white-cherry  tree  was  growing  there,  whose  fruit 
was  so  rich  from  the  fact  of  its  growing  above  the 
dead. 

"  On  Tuesday,  the  23d  of  June,  18G3,  the  first 
spadeful  of  earth  was  turned  up  before  the  mayor 
and  the  archbishop  of  Amboise.  I  set  the  men  to 
work  on  three  different  spots,  some  to  reconnoitre 
the  foundations  of  the  church,  others  to  look  for 
the  ossuary,  and  the  rest  to  search  the  tombs.  It 
was  necessary  to  dig  down  deeply,  the  soil  having 
risen  over  the  site  of  the  church  to  the  height  of 
two  or  three  yards.  .  .  . 

"  The  20th  of  August  we  lighted  on  a  very  old 
tomb,  which  had  been,  at  the  demolition  of  St. 
Florentin,  covered  with  unequal  stones.  No  doubt 
the  original  tombstone  had  been  broken,  and,  out 
of  respect  for  the  dead,  replaced  by  slabs  belong- 
ing to  the  church,  and  bearing  still  some  rude 
traces  of  fresco  painting.  ...  It  was  in  the  choir 
of  the  church,  close  to  the  wall,  and  toward  the 
top  of  the  plantation,  where  grew  the  white-cherry 
tree. 

"  We  uncovered  the  skeleton  with  great  respect ; 
nothing  had  occurred  to  disturb  the  repose  of 
death,  excepting  that  towards  the  head  the  roots  of 
the  tree  had  overturned  the  vase  of  charcoal. 
After  displacing  a  few  handfuls  of  earth,  we  saw 
great  dignity  in  the  attitude  of  the  majestic  dead. 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI.  99 

.  .  .  The  head  rested  on  the  hand  as  if  in  sleep. 
This  is  the  only  skeleton  we  discovered  in  this 
position,  Avhich  is  never  given  to  the  dead,  and 
appears  that  of  a  deep  thinker  tired  with  study. 
...  I  had  brought  with  me  from  Milan  a  portrait 
of  Leonardo  da  Vinci  ...  and  the  skull  we  had 
taken  from  its  tomb  corresponded  exactly  with  the 
drawing.  Many  doctors  have  seen  it,  and  consider 
it  to  be  the  skull  of  a  septuagenarian.  Eight  teeth 
still  remain  in  the  jaws,  four  above  and  four  below. 
.  .  .  The  brow  projects  over  the  eyes,  and  is  broad 
and  high ;  the  occipital  arch  was  ample  and  purely 
denned.  Intellect  had  reigned  there,  but  no 
especial  quality  predominated. 

"  We  collected  near  the  head  some  fragments  of 
hair  or  beard,  and  a  few  shreds  of  brown  woollen 
material.  On  the  feet  were  found  some  pieces  of 
sandals,  still  keeping  the  shape  of  the  feet.  .  .  . 

"The  skeleton,  which  measured  five  feet  eight 
inches,  accords  with  the  height  of  Leonardo  da 
Vinci.  The  skull  might  have  served  for  the  model 
of  the  portrait  Leonardo  drew  of  himself  in  red 
chalk  a  few  years  before  his  death.  M.  Robert 
Fleury,  head  master  of  the  Fine  Art  School  of 
Rome,  has  handled  the  skull  with  respect,  and 
recognized  in  it  the  grand  and  simple  outline  of 
this  human  yet  divine  head,  which  once  held  a 
world  within  its  limits." 

In  1873  Italy  raised  a  monument  to  her  great 
genius,  at  Milan.  His  statue  stands  on  a  lofty 
pedestal,  which  has  four  bas-reliefs,  representing 


100  LEONARDO  DA    VINCI. 

scenes  from  his  life.  At  the  four  corners  are 
placed  statues  of  his  principal  scholars,  —  Cesare 
da  Sesto,  Marco  d'  Oggione,  Beltraffio,  and  Andrea 
Solario. 

All  Leonardo's  precious  manuscripts  were  be- 
queathed to  Francesco  Melzi,  and  unfortunately 
became  scattered.  About  the  end  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  they  were  mostly  in  the  Ambrosian 
Library  at  Milan  ;  but  the  French  under  Napoleon 
took  fourteen  of  the  principal  manuscripts,  leaving 
only  two,  which  now  form  the  "  Codex  Atlantico  " 
at  Milan.  The  latter  is  a  collection  of  four  hun- 
dred of  Leonardo's  drawings  and  manuscripts.  One 
volume  on  mathematics  and  physics  is  among  the 
Arundel  Manuscripts,  at  the  British  Museum.  At 
Holkham  is  a  manuscript  of  the  Libra  Originali  di 
Natura. 

]n  1651  Raphael  Trichet  Dupresne,  of  Paris, 
published  a  selection  from  Da  Vinci's  works  on 
painting,  the  Trattato  delta  Pittura,  which  has  been 
reprinted  twenty-two  times  in  six  different  lan- 
guages, "one  of  the  best  guides  and  counsellors 
of  the  painter."  A  "  Treatise  on  the  Motion  and 
Power  of  Water "  was  published  later.  In  1883 
Jean  Paul  Eichter,  Knight  of  the  Bavarian  Order 
of  St.  Michael,  after  years  of  labor  over  the  strange 
handwriting  of  Da  Vinci,  from  right  to  left  across 
the  page,  published  much  of  the  work  of  the 
great  painter,  reproducing  his  sketches  by  photo- 
gravure. He  had  access  to  the  manuscripts  in  the 
Royal  Library  at  Windsor,  the  Institute  of  France, 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI,  101 

the  Ambrosian  Library  at  Milan,  the  Louvre,  the 
Academy  of  Venice,  the  Uffizi,  the  Royal  Library 
of  Turin,  the  British  and  South  Kensington 
Museums,  and  Christ  Church  College,  Oxford. 

Eichter  says,  "Da  Vinci  has  been  unjustly  ac- 
cused of  having  squandered  his  powers  by  begin- 
ning a  variety  of  studies,  and  then,  having  hardly 
begun,  thrown  them  aside.  The  truth  is  that  the 
labors  of  three  centuries  have  hardly  sufficed  for  the 
elucidation  of  some  of  the  problems  which  occupied 
his  mighty  mind." 

Leonardo's  astronomical  speculations,  his  re- 
marks on  fossils,  at  that  time  believed  to  be  mere 
freaks  of  nature,  his  close  study  of  botan}',  his 
researches  in  chemistry,  color,  heat,  light,  mechan- 
ics, anatomy,  music,  acoustics,  and  magnetism,  have 
been  an  astonishment  to  every  reader. 

Among  his  inventions  were  "  a  proportional  com- 
pass, a  lathe  for  turning  ovals,  an  hygrometer ;  an 
ingenious  surgical  probe,  a  universal  joint,  dredging 
machines,  wheelbarrows,  diving-suits,  a  porphyry 
color-grinder,  boats  moved  by  paddle-wheels,  a 
roasting-jack  worked  by  hot  air,  a  three-legged 
sketching-stool  which  folded  up,  a  revolving  cowl 
for  chimneys,  ribbon-looms,  coining  presses,  saws 
for  stone,  silk  spindles  and  throwers,  wire-drawing 
and  file-cutting,  and  plate-rolling  machines."  No 
wonder  he  was  called  the  "  all-knowing  Leonardo." 

All  his  work  as  a  poet  is  lost,  save  one  sonnet :  — 

"  Who  cannot  do  as  he  desires,  must  do 
What  lies  within  his  power.     Folly  it  is 


102  LEONARDO  DA    VINCI. 

To  wish  what  cannot  be.     The  wise  man  holds 
That  from  such  wishing  he  must  free  himself. 
Our  joy  and  grief  consist  alike  in  this: 
In  knowing  what  to  will  and  what  to  do; 
But  only  he  whose  judgment  never  strays 
Beyond  the  threshold  of  the  right  learns  this. 
Nor  is  it  always  good  to  have  one's  wish; 
What  seemeth  sweet  full  oft  to  bitter  turns. 
My  tears  have  flown  at  having  my  desire. 
Therefore,  O  reader  of  these  lines,  if  thou 
Wouldest  be  good,  and  be  to  others  dear, 
Will  always  to  be  able  to  do  right." 

In  Richter's  works  of  Leonardo  are  many  fables  : 
"  A  razor,  having  come  out  of  the  sheath  in  which 
it  was  usually  concealed,  and  placed  itself  in  the 
sunlight,  saw  how  brightly  the  sun  was  reflected 
from  its  surface.  Mightily  pleased  thereat,  it 
began  to  reason  with  itself  after  this  fashion: 
'  Shall  I  now  go  back  to  the  shop  which  I  have 
just  quitted  ?  Certainly  it  cannot  be  pleasing  to 
the  gods  that  such  dazzling  beauty  should  be  linked 
to  such  baseness  of  spirit.  What  a  madness  it 
would  be  that  should  lead  me  to  shave  the  soaped 
beards  of  country  bumpkins  !  Is  this  a  form  fitted 
to  such  base  mechanical  uses  ?  Assuredly  not.  I 
shall  withdraw  myself  into  some  secluded  spot, 
and,  in  calm  repose,  pass  away  my  life.' 

"Having  therefore  concealed  itself  for  some 
months,  on  leaving  its  sheath  one  day  and  returning 
to  the  open  air,  it  found  itself  looking  just  like  a 
rusty  saw,  and  totally  unable  to  reflect  the  glori- 
ous sun  from  its  tarnished  surface.  It  lamented 


LEONARDO  DA    VINCI.  103 

in  vain  this  irreparable  loss,  and  said  to  itself, 
'  How  much  better  had  I  kept  up  the  lost  keenness 
of  my  edge,  by  practising  with  my  friend  the  bar- 
ber. What  has  become  of  my  once  brilliant  sur- 
face ?  This  abominable  rust  has  eaten  it  all  up.' 
If  genius  chooses  to  indulge  in  sloth,  it  must  not 
expect  to  preserve  the  keen  edge  which  the  rust  of 
ignorance  will  soon  destroy." 

Richter  also  gives  many  pages  of  terse  moral 
sentiments,  showing  that  Da  Vinci,  in  his  more 
than  thirty  years  of  writing,  —  he  began  to  write 
when  he  was  about  thirty,  —  had  thought  deeply 
and  probably  conformed  his  life  to  his  thoughts. 

"  It  is  easier  to  contend  with  evil  at  the  first 
than  at  the  last. 

"  You  can  have  no  dominion  greater  or  less  than 
that  over  yourself. 

"  If  the  thing  loved  is  base,  the  lover  becomes 
base. 

"  That  is  not  riches  which  may  be  lost ;  virtue  is 
our  true  good,  and  the  true  reward  of  its  posses- 
sor. That  cannot  be  lost,  that  never  deserts  us, 
but  when  life  leaves  us.  As  to  property  and  exter- 
nal riches,  hold  them  with  trembling ;  they  often 
leave  their  possessor  in  contempt,  and  mocked  at 
for  having  lost  them. 

"  Learning  acquired  in  youth  arrests  the  evil  of 
old  age ;  and  if  you  understand  that  old  age  has 
wisdom  for  its  food,  you  will  so  conduct  yourself 
in  youth  that  your  old  age  will  not  lack  for  nour- 
ishment. 


104  LEONARDO  DA    VINCI. 

"  The  acquisition  of  any  knowledge  is  always  of 
use  to  the  intellect ;  because  it  may  thus  drive  out 
useless  things,  and  retain  the  good. 

"  Avoid  studies  of  which  the  result  dies  with  the 
worker. 

"  Reprove  your  friend  in  secret,  and  praise  him. 
openly." 

In  the  midst  of  the  corruption  of  that  age,  we 
hear  no  word  breathed  against  the  character  of  this 
eager,  brilliant,  many-sided  man.  He  won  from 
his  pupils  the  most  complete  devotion,  and  he 
seems  to  have  given  as  fond  an  affection  in  return. 
This  possibly  satisfied  the  craving  of  the  human 
heart  for  love.  Perhaps,  after  all,  life  did  not 
appear  as  satisfactory  as  he  could  have  wished, 
with  all  his  worship  of  the  beautiful,  for  he  says, 
"  When  I  thought  I  was  learning  to  live,  I  was  but 
learning  to  die."  He  seemed  at  the  zenith  of  his 
powers  when  death  came ;  but  who  shall  estimate 
the  value  of  a  life  by  its  length  ?  He  said,  "  As  a 
day  well  spent  gives  a  joyful  sleep,  so  does  life 
well  employed  give  a  joyful  death.  ...  A  life  well 
spent  is  long." 


RAPHAEL  OF   URBINO. 


RAPHAEL   OF   URBINO. 


"  ~TN  the  history  of  Italian  art  Raphael  stands 
-L  alone,  like  Shakespeare  in  the  history  of  our 
literature ;  and  he  takes  the  same  kind  of  rank  —  a 
superiority  not  merely  of  degree,  but  of  quality. 
.  .  .  His  works  have  been  an  inexhaustible  store- 
house of  ideas  to  painters  and  to  poets.  Every- 
where in  art  we  find  his  traces.  Everywhere  we 
recognize  his  forms  and  lines,  borrowed  or  stolen, 
reproduced,  varied,  imitated,  —  never  improved. 

"  Some  critic  once  said,  '  Show  me  any  sentiment 
or  feeling  in  any  poet,  ancient  or  modern,  and  I 
will  show  you  the  same  thing  either  as  well  or  bet- 
ter expressed  in  Shakespeare.'  In  the  same  man- 
ner one  might  say,  '  Show  ine  in  any  painter, 
ancient  or  modern,  any  especial  beauty  of  form, 
expression,  or  sentiment,  and  in  some  picture, 
drawing,  or  painting  after  Raphael  I  will  show  you 
the  same  thing  as  well  or  better  done,  and  that 
accomplished  which  others  have  only  sought  or 
attempted.' 

"  To  complete  our  idea  of  this  rare  union  of 
greatness  and  versatility  as  an  artist  with  all  that 
could  grace  and  dignify  the  man,  we  must  add 
such  personal  qualities  as  very  seldom  meet  in  the 


106  BAP  HA  EL   OF  U  It  VINO. 

same  individual  —  a  bright,  generous,  genial,  gentle 
spirit ;  the  most  attractive  manners,  the  most  win- 
ning modesty." 

Thus  writes  Mrs.  Jameson  of  the  man  of  whom 
Vasari  said,  "When  this  noble  artist  died,  well 
might  Painting  have  departed  also,  for  when  he 
closed  his  eyes,  she  too  was  left,  as  it  were,  blind. 
.  .  .  To  him.  of  a  truth  it  is  that  we  owe  the  pos- 
session of  invention,  coloring,  and  execution, 
brought  alike,  and  altogether,  to  that  point  of 
perfection  for  which  few  could  have  dared  to  hope  ; 
nor  has  any  man  ever  aspired  to  pass  before  him." 

Raphael  of  Urbino  was  born  at  Colbordolo,  a 
small  town  in  the  Duchy  of  Urbino,  April  6,  1483. 
His  father,  Giovanni  Santi,  was  a  painter  of  con- 
siderable merit,  and  was  possessed  also  of  poetic 
ability,  as  he  wrote  an  epic  of  two  hundred  and 
twenty-four  pages,  in  honor  of  Federigo  of  Monte- 
feltro,  then  Duke  of  Urbino.  This  duke  was  a 
valiant  soldier,  and  a  patron  of  art  and  literature, 
who  for  years  kept  twenty  or  thirty  persons  copy- 
ing Greek  and  Latin  manuscripts  for  his  library. 

The  mother  of  Raphael,  Magia,  the  daughter  of 
Battista  Ciarla,  a  merchant  at  Urbino,  was  a 
woman  of  unusual  sweetness  of  disposition  and 
beauty  of  character.  Unfortunately  she  died 
when  Raphael  was  eight  years  old.  Her  three 
other  children  died  young. 

These  years  must  have  been  happy  ones  to  the 
gentle,  loving  child.  Their  home  was  in  the  midst 
of  the  snowy  peaks  of  the  Apennines,  looking 


RAPHAEL   OF  URBINO.  107 

towards  the  blue  Adriatic.  It  is  not  strange  that 
he  became  a  worshipper  of  the  beautiful.  Nature 
soon  grows  to  be  an  inspiring  companion  to  those 
who  love  her.  She  warms  the  heart  with  her 
exquisite  pictures  of  varied  earth  and  sky  ;  she 
caresses  us  with  the  glow  of  sunlight  and  the 
fragrance  of  flowers  ;  she  sings  us  to  rest  with  the 
melody  of  the  sea  and  the  murmur  of  the  trees 
and  the  brooks. 

Giovanni  Santi  married  for  his  second  wife 
Bernardina,  the  daughter  of  the  goldsmith,  Pietro 
di  Parte,  a  woman  of  strong  character,  but  lacking 
the  gentleness  of  Magia.  Two  years  after  this 
marriage  he  died,  leaving  Eaphael  doubly  orphaned 
at  eleven  years  of  age.  What  prospect  was  there 
that  this  boy,  without  father  or  mother,  without 
riches  or  distinguished  family,  would  work  his 
way  to  renown  ? 

The  will  of  Giovanni  left  the  Santi  home  to 
Bernardina  as  long  as  she  remained  a  widow,  and 
the  child  to  her  care  and  that  of  his  brother,  a 
priest,  Don  Bartolomeo.  The  latter  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  a  very  saintly  minister,  for  he 
and  Bernardina  quarrelled  constantly  over  the  prop- 
erty, quite  forgetting  the  development  of  the  boy 
left  in  their  charge.  Finally  Magia's  brother, 
Simone  di  Battista  Ciarla,  came  to  an  understand- 
ing with  the  disputants,  and  arranged  that  the 
lad,  who  had  worked  somewhat  in  his  father's 
studio,  should  be  placed  under  some  eminent 
painter. 


108  RAPHAEL   OF  URBINO. 

Pietro  Perugino  was  chosen,  an  artist  who  had 
one  of  the  largest  schools  in  Italy,  and  who  was 
noted  especially  for  his  coloring  and  profound 
feeling.  It  is  said  that  when  he  examined  the 
sketches  of  the  boy,  he  exclaimed,  "  Let  him  be  my 
pupil :  he  will  soon  become  my  master." 

Perugino  had  been  a  follower  of  Savonarola,  but 
after  he  had  seen  that  good  man  put  to  death,  he 
gave  up  his  faith  in  God  and  man.  When  he  was 
on  his  death-bed,  he  refused  to  see  a  confessor, 
saying,  "  I  wish  to  see  how  a  soul  will  fare  in  that 
Land,  which  has  not  been  confessed." 

For  nine  years  Raphael  worked  under  Perugino 
at  Perugia,  studying  perspective  and  every  depart- 
ment of  art,  and  winning  the  love  of  both  master 
and  pupils.  When  he  was  seventeen,  Passavant, 
in  his  life  of  Raphael,  says,  the  young  artist  painted 
his  first  works,  his  master  being  in  Florence  :  a 
banner  for  the  church  of  the  Trinita  of  Citth  di 
Castello,  and  the  "Crucifixion."  The  banner  has 
the  "  Trinity "  on  one  sheet  of  canvas,  and  the 
"Creation  of  Man"  on  the  other.  The  "Crucifix- 
ion "  was  bought  by  Cardinal  Fesch  at  Eome,  and 
at  the  sale  of  his  paintings,  in  1845,  was  purchased 
for  about  twelve  thousand  five  hundred  dollars.  It 
is  now  in  Earl  Dudley's  collection. 

About  this  time  the  "  Coronation  of  the  Virgin  " 
was  painted  for  Madonna  Maddalina  degli  Oddi,  a 
lady  of  great  influence,  who  obtained  for  Raphael 
several  commissions,  concerning  which  he  expresses 
great  joy  in  his  letters.  How  many  are  willing  to 


RAPHAEL   OF  URBINO.  109 

employ  an  artist  after  he  is  famous ;  how  few  before ! 
A  woman  had  the  heart  and  the  good  sense  to  help 
him  in  these  early  years,  and  she  helped  the  whole 
art  world  thereby. 

This  picture  was  kept  in  the  Franciscan  church 
at  Perugia  until  1792,  when  it  was  sent  to  Paris, 
but  was  restored  to  Italy  by  the  treaty  of  1815, 
and  is  now  in  the  Vatican. 

For  a  friend  of  Perugia  he  painted  the  beauti- 
ful Connestabile  Madonna.  "  The  mother  of  the 
Saviour,"  says  Passavant,  "  a  figure  of  virginal 
sweetness,  is  walking  in  the  country,  in  early 
spring,  when  the  trees  are  still  bare,  and  the  dis- 
tant mountains  are  covered  with  snow.  She  is 
walking  along  pensively,  reading  in  a  little 
book,  in  which  the  child  in  her  arms  also  looks 
attentively.  Nothing  could  be  found  more  ex- 
quisite. Everything  in  it  shows  that  Raphael 
must  have  devoted  himself  to  it  with  especial 
ardor." 

This  picture,  only  six  and  three-fourths  inches 
square,  was  sold  in  1871  to  the  Emperor  of  Russia 
for  sixty-six  thousand  dollars. 

Raphael  left  the  studio  of  Perugino  in  the  begin- 
ning of  1504,  before  he  was  twenty-one,  and  painted 
for  the  Franciscans,  at  Citta  di  Castello,  the 
"  Marriage  of  the  Virgin,"  now  the  chief  ornament 
of  the  Brera  gallery  at  Milan,  and  called  the 
"  Sposalizio."  "The  Virgin  is  attended  by  five 
women,  and  St.  Joseph  by  five  young  men  who  were 
once  Mary's  suitors.  The  despair  of  the  lovers  is 


110  RAPHAEL   OF  URBINO. 

shadowed  forth  by  the  reeds  they  hold  ;  they  will 
never  flower ;  and  the  handsomest  youth  is  break- 
ing his  across  his  knees." 

Grimm  says  of  this  picture,  "Next  to  the  Sis- 
tine  Madonna,  it  may  be  considered  Raphael's 
most  popular  work.  In  the  figures  of  this  compo- 
sition we  recognize  types  of  all  the  different  ages  of 
man,  which  allow  every  one  who  stands  before  it, 
whether  young  or  old,  to  feel  as  if  the  artist  had 
been  the  confidant  of  all  the  thoughts  and  feelings 
appropriate  to  his  period  of  life.  .  .  .  Raphael's 
elegance  obtrudes  itself  nowhere,  as  with  other 
artists  is  so  often  the  case.  Beside  this,  the  har- 
mony of  his  colors,  which,  although  hitting  against 
one  another  almost  sharply,  still  have  the  effect  of 
a  bed  of  flowers  whose  varied  hues  combine  agree- 
ably. A  youthful  delight  in  the  brilliancy  of  color 
is  apparent,  which  later  yielded  to  a  different  taste. 
Like  Diirer,  Raphael  might  have  confessed,  in  his 
ripest  years,  that  while  young  he  loved  a  certain 
garishness  of  coloring,  such  as  he  had  afterward 
renounced." 

Raphael  now  returned  to  Urbino,  where  he 
painted  for  the  reigning  duke,  "  St.  George  slaying 
the  Dragon  "  and  "  St.  Michael  attacking  Satan." 
He  made  many  friends  among  the  noted  people  of 
the  court,  but,  full  of  ambition,  and  having  heard 
of  the  works  of  Da  Vinci  and  Michael  Angelo  at 
Florence,  he  was  extremely  anxious  to  go  to  that 
city.  A  lady,  as  previously,  took  interest  in  the 
boyish  artist,  and  wrote  to  Pietro  Soderini,  the 


RAPHAEL   OF  URBINO.  Ill 

Gonfaloniere  of  Florence,  the  following  letter  of 
introduction :  — 

"  Most  magnificent  and  powerful  lord,  whom,  I  must 
ever  honor  as  a  father,  — 

"  He  who  presents  this  letter  to  you  is  Raphael, 
a  painter  of  Urbino,  endowed  with  great  talent  in 
art.  He  has  decided  to  pass  some  time  in  Florence, 
in  order  to  improve  himself  in  his  studies.  As  the 
father,  who  was  dear  to  me,  was  full  of  good  quali- 
ties, so  the  son  is  a  modest  young  man  of  distin- 
guished manners  ;  and  thus  I  bear  him  an  affection 
on  every  account,  and  wish  that  he  should  attain 
perfection.  This  is  why  I  recommend  him  as  ear- 
nestly as  possible  to  your  Highness,  with  an  entreaty 
that  it  may  please  you,  for  love  of  me,  to  show  him 
help  and  protection  on  every  opportunity.  I  shall 
regard  as  rendered  to  myself,  and  as  an  agreeable 
proof  of  friendship  to  me,  all  the  services  and 
kindness  that  he  may  receive  from  your  Lordship. 

"  From  her  who  commends  herself  to  you,  and  is 
willing  to  render  any  good  offices  in  return. 

"  JOANNA  FELTRA  DE  RUVERE,  [sic.'} 
"Duchess  of  Sora,  and  Prefectissa  of  Rome." 

With  this  cordial  letter  from  the  sister  of  the 
Duke  of  Urbino,  he  entered  the  City  of  Flowers. 
He  was  now  a  youth  of  twenty-one,  slight  in  figure, 
five  feet  eight  inches  tall,  with  dark  brown  eyes 
and  hair,  perfect  teeth,  and  the  kindest  of  hearts. 
He  was  received  into  the  homes  of  the  patricians, 
and  was  asked  to  paint  pictures  for  them.  Meantime 


112  RAPHAEL   OF   U RHINO. 

he  used  every  spare  moment  in  study.  Especially 
did  the  works  of  Masaccio  and  Leonardo  da  Vinci, 
says  Passavant,  "reveal  to  Raphael  his  own  won- 
derful powers,  until  then  almost  concealed.  Awa- 
kened suddenly,  and  excited  with  the  inspiration 
that  seemed  all  at  once  to  flow  in  on  him  from 
every  side,  he  pushed  forward  at  once  towards  the 
perfection  he  was  so  soon  to  attain." 

He  copied  the  horsemen  in  Da  Vinci's  battle  of 
Anghiari ;  made  sketches  from  life  of  the  children 
of  the  Florentines,  in  his  book  of  drawings,  now  to 
be  seen  in  the  Academy  of  Venice  ;  stood  entranced 
before  the  gates  of  Ghiberti,  and  that  marvel  of 
beauty,  the  Campanile  of  Giotto. 

Raphael  now  painted  for  his  friend,  Lorenzo 
Nasi,  the  "Madonna  della  Gran  Duca,"  now  in  the 
Pitti  Palace.  Until  the  end  of  the  last  century 
this  picture  was  in  the  possession  of  a  poor  widow, 
who  sold  it  to  a  bookseller  for  twelve  scudi. 
Finally  the  Grand  Duke  Ferdinand  III.  of  Tus- 
cany bought  it,  and  carried  it  with  him  through 
all  his  journeys,  praying  before  it  night  and  morn- 
ing. "  The  bold,  commanding,  and  luminous  style," 
says  Passavaut,  "  in  which  the  painting  stands  out 
from  the  background,  makes  the  figure  and  divine 
expression  of  the  head  still  more  impressive. 
Thanks  to  all  these  qualities  united,  this  Madonna 
produces  the  effect  of  a  supernatural  apparition. 
In  short,  it  is  one  of  the  masterpieces  of  Raphael." 

Another  Madonna  on  wood,  thirty-five  inches  in 
diameter,  owned  by  the  Terranuova  family  until 


RAPHAEL   OF  UliBINO.  113 

1854,  was  purchased  for  the  Berlin  Museum,  for 
thirty-four  thousand  dollars. 

After  some  other  works,  Raphael  went  back  to 
Urbino  and  Perugia,  but,  eager  and  restless  for 
Florence,  he  soon  returned  to  that  city  and  was 
cordially  welcomed.  His  enthusiasm  inspired 
every  artist,  and  his  modest  deference  to  the 
opinions  of  others  won  him  countless  friends; 
"  the  only  very  distinguished  man,"  as  Mrs.  Jame- 
son says,  "  of  wttom  we  read,  who  lived  and  died 
without  an  enemy  or  a  detractor  ! "  Between  1506 
and  1508,  besides  the  Temfi  Madonna  now  of 
Munich,  and  the  Colonna  Madonna  at  Berlin,  the 
Ansidei  Madonna  was  painted  for  the  Ansidei 
family  of  Perugia  as  an  altar-piece  in  the  church  of 
S.  Fiorenzo.  It  represents  the  Virgin  on  a  throne, 
with  Jesus  on  her  right  knee,  and  an  open  book 
on  her  left,  from  which  mother  and  child  are  read- 
ing. The  painting  was  purchased  in  1884  by  the 
National  Gallery  for  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  for 
the  enormous  sum  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars. 

On  the  marriage  of  his  patrician  friend,  Lorenzo 
Nasi,  he  painted  for  him  the  "  Madonna  with  the 
Goldfinch,"  called  also  the  "  Madonna  del  Cardel- 
lino,"  now  in  the  Uffizi.  The  Virgin  is  seated  hold- 
ing a  book,  while  St.  John  is  offering  to  the  infant 
Saviour  a  goldfinch,  which  the  child  is  about  to 
caress.  Another  picture,  painted  for  his  intimate 
friend  Taddeo  Taddei,  a  learned  Florentine,  "  The 
Holy  Family  under  the  Palm  Tree,"  round,  and 


114  RAPHAEL    OF   URBINO. 

forty -two  and  three-fourths  inches  in  diameter,  was 
purchased  by  the  Duke  of  Bridgewater,  for  sixty 
thousand  dollars,  and  is  now  in  the  possession  of 
Lord  Ellesmere,  in  London. 

Again  Raphael  returned  to  the  court  of  Urbino, 
always  winning  to  himself  the  most  educated  and 
the  noblest  among  the  distinguished  men  and 
women.  Pietro  Bembo,  secretary  to  Leo  X.  and  a 
cardinal  under  Paul  III.,  one  of  the  most  celebrated 
writers  of  the  time,  was  very  fofid  of  Raphael ; 
Count  Baldassare  Castiglione,  a  writer  and  diplo- 
matist, was  one  of  the  artist's  most  loved  compan- 
ions ;  Bernardo  Divizio  da  Bibiena,  author  of  "  La 
Calandra,"  the  first  prose  comedy  written  in  Italy, 
loved  him  as  a  brother  ;  Francesco  Francia  and  Fra 
Bartolomeo,  the  noted  artists,  were  his  ardent 
friends. 

Something  beside  genius  drew  all  these  men 
and  scores  of  others  to  Raphael.  Vasari  says, 
"  Every  vile  and  base  thought  departed  from  the 
mind  before  his  influence.  There  was  among  his 
extraordinary  gifts  one  of  such  value  and  impor- 
tance that  I  can  never  sufficiently  admire  it,  and 
always  think  thereof  with  astonishment.  This  was 
the  power  accorded  to  him  by  Heaven,  of  bringing 
all  who  approached  his  presence  into  harmony ;  an 
effect  inconceivably  surprising  in  our  calling,  and 
contrary  to  the  nature  of  our  artists,  yet  all,  I  do 
not  say  of  the  inferior  grades  only,  but  even  those 
who  lay  claim  to  be  great  personages,  became  as  of 
one  mind  once  they  began  to  labor  in  the  society 


RAPHAEL   OF   URBINO.  115 

of  Kaphael,  continuing  in  such  unity  and  concord, 
that  all  harsh  feelings  and  evil  dispositions«became 
subdued  and  disappeared  at  the  sight  of  him.  .  .  . 
Such  harmony  prevailed  at  no  other  time  than  his 
own.  And  this  happened  because  all  were  sur- 
passed by  him  in  friendly  courtesy  as  well  as  in 
art ;  all  confessed  the  influence  of  his  sweet  and 
gracious  nature,  which  was  so  replete  with  excel- 
lence, and  so  perfect  in  all  the  charities,  that  not 
only  was  he  honored  by  men,  but  even  by  the  very 
animals,  who  would  constantly  follow  his  steps  and 
always  loved  him." 

"  We  find  it  related  that  whenever  any  other 
painter,  whether  known  to  Raphael  or  not,  requested 
any  design  or  assistance  of  whatever  kind  at  his 
hands,  he  would  invariably  leave  his  work  to  do  him 
service;  he  continually  kept  a  large  number  of 
artists  employed,  all  of  whom  he  assisted  and 
instructed  with  an  affection  which  was  rather  as 
that  of  a  father  to  his  children  than  merely  as  of 
an  artist  to  artists.  From  these  things  it  followed 
that  he  was  never  seen  to  go  to  court,  but  surrounded 
and  accompanied,  as  he  left  his  house,  by  some  fifty 
painters,  all  men  of  ability  and  distinction,  who 
attended  him  thus  to  give  evidence  of  the  honor  in 
which  they  held  him.  He  did  not,  in  short,  live 
the  life  of  a  painter,  but  that  of  a  prince. 

"Wherefore,  0  art  of  painting!  well  mightest 
thou  for  thy  part,  then,  esteem  thyself  most  happy, 
having,  as  thou  hadst,  one  artist,  among  thy  sons, 
by  whose  virtues  and  talents  thou  wert  thyself 


116  RAPHAEL   OF   U RHINO. 

exalted  to  heaven.  Thrice  blessed  indeed  mayest 
thou  declare  thyself,  since  thou  hast  seen  thy  disci- 
ples, by  pursuing  the  footsteps  of  a  man  so  exalted, 
acquire  the  knowledge  of  how  life  should  be 
employed,  and  become  impressed  with  the  impor- 
tance of  uniting  the  practice  of  virtue  to  that  of 
art." 

Raphael  allowed  people  to  pursue  their  own 
course,  without  attempting  to  dominate.  He  said 
to  Cesare  da  Sesto,  one  of  Da  Vinci's  most  distin- 
guished pupils,  "  How  does  it  happen,  dear  Cesare, 
that  we  live  in  such  good  friendship,  but  that  in 
the  art  of  painting  we  show  no  deference  to  each 
other."  Finally,  however,  Cesare  adopted  Raphael's 
methods  from  choice. 

Raphael  was  modest  in  manner,  never  monopo- 
lizing the  time  or  conversation  of  others.  He  made 
the  best  of  things,  overlooking  the  petty  matters 
which  some  persons  allow  to  wear  and  imbitter 
their  dispositions.  He  worked  hard,  performing  an 
amount  of  labor  which  has  been  the  astonishment 
of  the  world  ever  since  his  death ;  he  was  some- 
what frail  in  body ;  he  was  not  rich  in  this  world's 
goods  ;  sweet  in  nature  and  refined  in  spirit,  it  is 
to  be  presumed  that  he  kept  his  troubles  in  his 
own  heart,  unspoken  to  others.  He  loved  ardently, 
and  was  as  ardently  loved  in  return.  He  was 
appreciative,  sympathetic,  tender,  and  gracious. 

Herrmann  Grimm  says,  "  Such  men  pass  through 
life  as  a  bird  flies  through  the  air.  Nothing  hin- 
ders them.  It  is  all  one  to  the  stream  whether 


RAPHAEL   OF  UBBINO.  117 

it  flows  through  the  plain  smoothly  in  one  long 
line,  or  meanders  round  rocks  in  its  winding 
course.  It  is  no  circuitous  way  for  it,  thus  to  be 
driven  right  and  left  in  its  broad  course  ;  it  is 
sensible  of  no  delay  when  its  course  is  completely 
dammed.  Swelling  easily,  it  widens  out  into  the 
lake,  until  at  length  it  forces  a  path  for  its  waves ; 
and  the  power  with  which  it  now  dashes  on  is  just 
as  natural  as  the  repose  with  which  it  had  before 
changed  its  course. 

"  Kaphael,  Goethe,  and  Shakespeare  had  scarcely 
outward  destinies.  They  interfered  with  no  ap- 
parent power  in  the  struggles  of  their  people. 
They  enjoyed  life ;  they  worked ;  they  went  their 
way,  and  compelled  no  one  to  follow  them.  They 
obtruded  themselves  on  none ;  and  they  asked  not 
the  world  to  consider  them,  or  to  do  as  they  did. 
But  the  others  all  came  of  themselves,  and  drew 
from  their  refreshing  streams.  Can  we  mention 
a  violent  act  of  Raphael's,  Goethe's,  or  Shake- 
speare's ? 

"  Goethe,  who  seems  so  deeply  involved  in  all  that 
concerns  us,  who  is  the  author  of  our  mental  cul- 
ture, nowhere  opposed  events ;  he  turned  wherever 
he  could  advance  most  easily.  He  was  diligent. 
He  had  in  his  mind  the  completion  of  his  works. 
Schiller  wished  to  produce  and  to  gain  influence ; 
Michael  Angelo  wished  to  act,  and  could  not  bear 
that  lesser  men  should  stand  in  the  front,  over 
whom  he  felt  himself  master.  The  course  of  events 
moved  Michael  Angelo,  and  animated  or  checked 


118  RAPHAEL   OF  URBINO. 

his  ideas.  It  is  not  possible  to  extricate  the  con- 
sideration of  his  life  from  the  events  going  on  in 
the  world,  while  Raphael's  life  can  be  narrated 
separately  like  an  idyl." 

Raphael,  while  still  under  Perugino,  had  received 
from  Donna  Atalanta  Baglioni  the  order  for  an 
"  Entombment "  for  the  Church  of  the  Franciscans. 
This  he  painted  in  1507.  A  century  later  the 
monks  sold  it  to  Pope  Paul  V.,  who  had  it  removed 
to  the  Borghese  Palace  in  Rome. 

The  body  of  Christ  is  being  borne  to  the  tomb 
by  two  men.  The  weeping  Magdalen  is  holding 
his  hand,  and  the  Virgin  is  fainting  in  the  arms 
of  three  women. 

Grimm  says,  "The  bearers  of  the  body  move 
along,  conscious  of  carrying  a  noble  burden.  And 
Christ,  himself,  beauty,  serenity,  and  mercy  dwell 
in  him  in  fullest  measure,  as  if  his  spirit  still  both 
informed  his  body  and  glorified  it.  Only  Raphael 
could  undertake  to  paint  this.  No  one  before  or 
after  him  could  so  simply  and  naturally  picture  the 
earthly  form,  irradiated  with  heavenly  light." 

"  St.  Catherine  of  Alexandria,"  painted  at  this 
time,  now  in  the  National  Gallery  of  London,  says 
Passavant,  "  is  one  of  the  works  which  nothing 
can  describe  ;  neither  words  nor  a  painted  copy, 
nor  engravings,  for  the  fire  in  it  appears  living,  and 
is  perfectly  beyond  the  reach  of  imitation." 

"La  Belle  Jardiniere,"  in  the  Louvre,  considered 
one  of  the  best  and  most  beautiful  of  Raphael's 
works,  represents  the  Virgin  in  the  midst  of  rich 


RAPHAEL    OF   URUINO.  119 

landscape,  the  ground  covered  with  grass  and 
flowers,  while  the  infant  Christ  looks  up  to  her  with 
great  tenderness.  It  is  said  that  the  model  was  a 
lovely  flower-girl  to  whom  the  painter  was  much 
attached. 

While  finishing  this  picture  he  was  called  to 
Koine  by  the  famous  Pope  Julius  II. ,  and  went  to 
the  Eternal  City  with  great  hope  and  delight. 

He  was  now  twenty-five,  and  the  most  important 
work  of  his  life  lay  before  him.  Julius  II.  had 
refused  to  take  possession  of  the  rooms  in  the 
Vatican  which  had  been  used  by  the  depraved 
Alexander  VI.  He  said,  when  it  was  suggested 
to  remove  the  mural  portraits  of  that  pope,  "  Even 
if  the  portraits  were  destroyed,  the  walls  them- 
selves would  remind  me  of  that  Simoniac,  that 
Jew ! " 

Michael  Angelo  was  already  at  work  upon  the 
great  monument  for  Julius.  Now  the  pope  desired 
to  enlarge  and  beautify  the  Vatican,  and  make  that 
his  monument  as  well.  He  received  Kaphael  with 
the  greatest  cordiality.  It  is  said  that  when 
Raphael  knelt  down  before  him,  his  chestnut  locks 
falling  upon  his  shoulders,  the  pope  exclaimed, 
"  He  is  an  innocent  angel.  I  will  give  him  Cardi- 
nal Bembo  for  a  teacher,  and  he  shall  fill  my  walls 
with  historical  pictures."  Julius  commissioned 
him  to  fresco  the  hall  of  the  judicial  assembly, 
called  "La  Segnatura."  The  first  fresco,  done 
between  1508  and  1509,  is  called  «  Theology  "  or  the 
"  Dispute  on  the  Holy  Sacrament "  (La  Disputa). 


120  RAPHAEL    OF   U RHINO. 

"  In  the  upper  part  appear  the  three  figures  of  the 
Holy  Trinity,  each  surrounded  by  a  glory.  Above 
all  is  the  Almighty  Father,  in  the  midst  of  the  sera- 
phim, cherubim,  and  a  countless  host  of  angels,  who 
sing  the  'Holy,  holy,  holy,  Lord  God  of  hosts.' 
Below  the  Father,  amidst  the  saints  of  the  celestial 
kingdom,  the  Saviour  is  enthroned ;  a  little  lower, 
the  Holy  Spirit  is  descending  on  men. 

"  At  the  right  of  the  Saviour,  the  Virgin  is 
seated,  bending  towards  him  in  adoration ;  and  at 
her  left  is  St.  John  the  Baptist,  who  is  pointing 
towards  him.  On  a  large  half-circle  of  clouds, 
which  extends  to  the  extreme  limits  of  the  picture, 
are  seated  patriarchs,  prophets,  and  martyrs,  repre- 
senting the  communion  of  saints.  Commencing  at 
the  extreme  point  to  the  right  of  Christ,  we  see 
the  apostle  St.  Peter,  holding  the  Holy  Scriptures 
and  the  two  keys.  ...  At  his  side,  in  the  expecta- 
tion of  inercy  and  pardon,  is  Adam,  the  father  of 
the  human  race.  Near  Adam  is  St.  John,  the 
apostle  loved  by  Christ,  writing  down  his  divine 
visions ;  afterwards,  David,  the  head  of  the  terres- 
trial family  of  our  Lord,  the  sweet  psalmist  who 
sang  the  praises  of  God;  then  St.  Stephen,  the 
first  martyr ;  and  lastly,  a  saint  half  concealed  by 
the  clouds. 

"  On  the  other  side,  at  the  right  of  the  spectator, 
is  St.  Paul,  holding  a  sword  in  remembrance  of  his 
martyrdom,  and  also  as  a  symbol  of  the  penetrat- 
ing power  of  his  doctrine.  By  his  side  is  Abra- 
ham, with  the  knife  to  sacrifice  Isaac,  the  first 


RAPHAEL   OF  UREINO.  121 

type  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ ;  then  the  apostle 
St.  James,  the  third  witness  of  the  transfiguration 
of  the  Saviour,  the  religious  type  of  hope,  as  St. 
Peter  is  of  faith  and  St.  John  of  love.  Moses 
follows  with  the  tables  of  the  law.  St.  Lawrence 
corresponds  to  St.  Stephen  ;  and  lastly  we  perceive 
a  warlike  figure,  which  is  believed  to  be  St.  George, 
the  patron  saint  of  Liguria ;  in  honor,  no  doubt,  of 
Julius  II.,  who  was  born  in  that  country. 

"The  Holy  Spirit,  under  the  form  of  a  dove, 
surrounded  by  four  cherubim,  who  hold  the  four 
books  of  the  Gospel  open,  is  descending  upon  the 
assembly  of  believers. 

"This  sort  of  council,  expressing  theological 
life,  is  united  in  a  half-circle  around  the  altar,  on 
which  the  Eucharist  is  exposed  on  a  monstrance. 
Nearest  to  the  altar,  on  both  sides,  come  the  four 
great  fathers  of  the  church,  the  columns  of  Roman 
Catholicism ;  to  the  left,  St.  Jerome,  the  type  of 
contemplative  life,  absorbed  in  profound  medita- 
tion on  the  Scriptures ;  near  him  are  two  books, 
one  containing  his  '  Letters,'  the  other  the  Vulgate. 
Opposite  is  St.  Ambrose,  active  especially  in  the 
militant  church:  he  is  raising  his  eyes  and  hands 
towards  heaven,  as  if  delighted  with  the  angelic 
harmonies.  St.  Augustine,  whom  he  converted  to 
Christianity,  is  beside  him,  and  is  dictating  his 
thoughts  to  a  young  man  seated  at  his  feet.  His 
book  on  the  '  City  of  God '  is  lying  by  him.  St. 
Gregory  the  Great,  clothed  in  the  tiara  and  pon- 
tifical mantle,  is  opposite  St.  Augustine.  His  book 


122  RAPHAEL   OF   URBINO. 

on  Job,  with  the  superscription,  '  Liber  Moralium/ 
is  also  on  the  ground  beside  him." 

Besides  these,  among  the  fifty  or  more  figures, 
are  other  priests  and  philosophers,  all  discussing 
the  great  questions  pertaining  to  the  redemption 
of  the  world. 

The  pope  was  so  overjoyed  on  the  completion  of 
this  picture  that  he  is  said  to  have  thrown  himself 
upon  tTie  ground,  exclaiming,  with  uplifted  hands, 
"  I  thank  thee,  great  God,  that  thou  hast  sent  me 
so  great  a  painter  !  " 

With  La  Disputa  the  romance  of  Raphael's 
life  begins.  While  he  was  painting  this,  tradi- 
tion says  that  he  fell  in  love  with  Margherita,  the 
daughter  of  a  soda-manufacturer,  who  lived  near 
Santa  Cecilia,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Tiber. 
Passavant  says,  quoting  from  Missirini,  "  A  small 
house,  No.  20,  in  the  street  of  Santa  Dorotea,  the 
windows  of  which  are  decorated  with  a  pretty 
framework  of  earthenware,  is  pointed  out  as  the 
house  where  she  was  born. 

"  The  beautiful  young  girl  was  very  frequently  in 
a  little  garden  adjoining  the  house,  where,  the  wall 
not  being  very  high,  it  was  easy  to  see  her  from 
outside.  So  the  young  men,  especially  artists,  — 
always  passionate  admirers  of  beauty,  —  did  not 
fail  to  come  and  look  at  her,  by  climbing  up  above 
the  wall. 

"  Raphael  is  said  to  have  seen  her  for  the  first 
time  as  she  was  bathing  her  pretty  feet  in  a  little 
fountain  in  the  garden.  Struck  by  her  perfect 


RAPHAEL   OF   UBBINO.  123 

beauty,  he  fell  deeply  in  love  with  her,  and,  after 
having  made  acquaintance  with  her,  and  discovered 
that  her  mind  was  as  beautiful  as  her  body,  he 
became  so  much  attached  as  to  be  unable  to  live 
without  her."  She  has  been  called  " Fomarina" 
because  she  was  long  supposed  to  be  the  daughter 
of  a  baker  (fornajo). 

On  the  rough  studies  made  for  the  Disputa, 
now  preserved  in  Vienna,  London,  and  elsewhere, 
three  love  sonnets  have  been  found  in  the  artist's 
handwriting,  showing  that  while  he  mused  over 
heavenly  subjects,  with  the  faces  of  Peter  and 
John  before  him,  he  had  another  face,  more  dear 
and  beautiful  than  either,  in  his  mind.  Eugene 
Muntz,  the  librarian  to  the  JEcole  Nationale  des 
Beaux-Arts,  who  says  of  these  sonnets,  "So  great 
is  his  delicacy  of  feeling,  his  reserve  and  discre- 
tion, that  we  can  scarcely  analyze  his  dominant 
idea,"  gives  the  following  translation  :  — 

"  Love,  thou  hast  bound  me  with  the  light  of  two 
eyes  which  torment  me,  "with  a  face  like  snow  and 
roses,  with  sweet  words  and  tender  manners.  So 
great  is  my  ardor  that  no  river  or  sea  could  extin- 
guish my  fire.  But  I  do  not  complain,  for  my 
ardor  makes  me  happy.  .  .  .  How  sweet  was  the 
chain,  how  light  the  yoke  of  her  white  arms  around 
my  neck.  When  those  bonds  were  loosed,  I  felt  a 
mortal  grief.  I  will  say  no  more  ;  a  great  joy 
kills,  and,  though  my  thoughts  turn  to  thee,  I  will 
keep  silence." 

"Just  as  Paul,  descended  from  the  skies,  was 


124  RAPHAEL   OF   URBINO. 

unable  to  reveal  the  secrets  of  God,"  so  Raphael  is 
unable  to  reveal  the  thoughts  of  his  beating  heart. 
He  thanks  and  praises  love,  and  yet  the  pain  of 
separation  is  intense.  He  feels  like  "  mariners 
who  have  lost  their  star." 

To  this  love  he  was  probably  constant  through 
life,  the  short  twelve  years  which  remained. 
When  he  painted  the  Farnesina,  the  palace  of  the 
rich  banker,  Agostino  Chigi,  years  afterward, 
Vasari  says,  "Raphael  was  so  much  occupied  with 
the  love  which  he  bore  to  the  lady  of  his  choice, 
that  he  could  not  give  sufficient  attention  to  the 
work.  Agostino,  therefore,  falling  at  length  into 
despair  of  seeing  it  finished,  made  so  many  efforts 
by  means  of  friends  and  by  his  own  care  that 
after  much  difficulty  he  at  length  prevailed  on  the 
lady  to  take  up  her  abode  in  his  house,  where 
she  was  accordingly  installed,  in  apartments  near 
those  which  Raphael  was  painting ;  in  this  man- 
ner the  work  was  ultimately  brought  to  a  con- 
clusion." 

He  painted  her  portrait,  now  in  the  Barberini 
Palace,  it  is  believed,  in  1509.  It  represents  a  girl 
"  only  half-clothed,  seated  in  a  myrtle  and  laurel 
wood.  A  striped  yellow  stuff  surrounds  her  head 
as  a  turban,  and  imparts  something  distinguished 
and  charming  to  her  features,"  says  Passavant. 
".  .  .  .  With  her  right  hand  she  holds  a  light  gauze 
against  her  breast.  Her  right  arm,  encircled 
with  a  golden  bracelet,  rests  on  her  knees,  which 
are  covered  by  red  drapery.  On  the  bracelet 


RAPHAEL   OF   URBINO.  125 

Raphael  has  inscribed  his  name  with  the  greatest 
care." 

The  face  did  not  seem  to  me  beautiful  when  I 
saw  it  in  Rome  a  few  years  ago,  but  certainly  does 
not  lack  expression,  making  one  feel  that  the  mind 
which  Raphael  discovered  "  to  be  as  beautiful  as 
the  body "  was  equally  potent  with  the  warm- 
hearted artist. 

Grimm  says,  "  The  portrait  of  the  young  girl  or 
woman  in  the  Barberini  Palace  is  a  wonderful 
painting.  I  call  it  so  because  it  bears  about  it  in 
a  high  degree  the  character  of  mysterious  unfath- 
omableness.  We  like  to  contemplate  it  again  and 
again.  .  .  .  Her  hair  is  brilliantly  black,  parted 
over  the  brow,  and  smoothly  drawn  over  the  tem- 
ples, behind  the  ear ;  the  head  is  encircled  with  a 
gay  handkerchief,  like  a  turban,  the  knots  of  which 
lie  on  one  side  above  the  ear,  pressing  it  a  little 
with  their  weight. 

"  She  is  slightly  bent  forward.  She  sits  there 
with  her  delicate  shoulder  a  little  turned  to  the 
left ;  she  seems  looking  stealthily  at  her  lover,  to 
watch  him  as  he  paints,  and  yet  not  to  stir  from 
her  position,  because  he  has  forbidden  it.  It  seems 
to  him,  however,  to  be  a  source  of  the  most  intense 
pleasure  to  copy  her  accurately,  and  in  no  small 
matter  to  represent  her  otherwise  than  as  he  saw 
her  before  him.  We  fancy  her  to  feel  the  jealousy, 
the  vehemence,  the  joy,  the  unalterable  good- 
humor,  and  the  pride  springing  from  the  happiness 
of  being  loved  by  him.  He,  however,  painted  it 


126  RAPHAEL   OF  URBINO. 

all  because  he  was  capable  of  these  feelings  him- 
self in  their  greatest  depth.  If  his  pictures  do 
not  betray  this,  his  poems  do." 

Muntz  says,  "  From  a  technical  point  of  view, 
the  work  is  a  masterpiece.  Never,  perhaps,  has 
Raphael  given  such  delicacy  and  subtlety  to  his 
carnations ;  never  did  he  create  a  fuller  life ;  we  can 
see  the  blood  circulate  ;  we  can  feel  the  beating 
pulse.  Thus  the  picture  is  a  continual  source  of 
envy  and  despair  to  modern  realists." 

Crowe  and  Cavalcaselle,  in  their  life  of  Raphael, 
speak  of  the  "  warm  tone  of  flesh  burnished  to  a 
nicety  and  shaded  with  exceptional  force,"  in  this 
picture.  "  The  coal-black  eyes  have  a  fascinating 
look  of  intentness,  which  is  all  the  more  effective 
as  they  are  absolutely  open,  under  brows  of  the 
purest  curves.  .  .  .  The  forehead  has  a  grand  arch, 
the  cheeks  are  broad,  the  chin  rounded  and  small. 
The  contours  are  all  circular.  The  flesh  has  a  ful- 
ness which  characterizes  alike  the  neck,  the  droop- 
ing shoulders,  and  the  arms  and  extremities." 

Passavant  thus  speaks  of  a  portrait  in  Florence, 
which  belonged  to  the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany. 
"  This  portrait  in  the  Pitti  Palace  bears  a  strong 
resemblance  to  the  Madonna  di  San  Sisto  (Dresden 
Museum),  with  this  difference,  however,  that  the 
features  of  the  Virgin  are  ennobled.  The  woman 
in  the  portrait  is  a  handsome  Roman,  but  of  quite 
individual  character.  Her  form  is  powerful,  her 
costume  sumptuous,  her  beautiful  black  eyes  flash, 
her  mouth  is  refined  and  full  of  grace. 


RAPHAEL   OF  UEBINO.  127 

"  If  this  portrait,  as  may  well  be  believed,  repre- 
sents the  same  person  as  that  of  the  Barberini 
house,  we  are  compelled  to  admit  that  the  counte- 
nance, always  intelligent,  of  this  young  girl,  had 
become  wonderfully  animated  in  the  time  between 
the  execution  of  the  two  portraits.  However,'7  he 
adds,  "it  would  be  indeed  astonishing  if  constant 
intercourse  with  the  author  of  so  many  master- 
pieces, and  one  of  the  most  perfect  human  organi- 
zations that  nature  ever  produced,  should  have 
failed  to  influence  the  facile  character  of  a  young 
girl.  This  second  portrait,  to  judge  by  the  manner 
in  which  it  is  painted,  must  belong  to  the  last  years 
of  Raphael's  life." 

With  this  fervent  and  lasting  love  for  Marghe- 
rita  in  his  heart,  Raphael  painted  the  other  three 
mural  paintings  in  the  Vatican  hall :  the  "  Parnas- 
sus," Apollo  surrounded  by  the  Nine  Muses, 
Homer  singing,  Dante  and  Virgil  conversing,  with 
Pindar,  Sappho,  Horace,  Petrarch,  Ovid,  and 
others;  " Jurisprudence,"  with  Emperor  Justinian 
and  Gregory  IX.,  the  one  founding  the  laws  of  the 
State,  the  other  the  laws  of  the  Church ;  the 
"  School  of  Athens,"  with  the  masters  of  ancient 
philosophy  and  science  assembled. 

On  the  left  we  see  the  most  ancient  of  the 
philosophic  schools  gathered  around  Pythagoras. 
Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle  are  surrounded 
by  their  pupils ;  Archimedes  and  Zoroaster  are 
the  central  figures  of  the  interested  group. 
Diogenes  sits  on  the  central  steps  of  the  grand 


128  RAPHAEL   OF  URBINO. 

hall  where  more  than  fifty  great  men  are  as- 
sembled. 

Passavant  says,  "  In  the  '  School  of  Athens/ 
Raphael  showed  the  full  power  of  his  genius,  and 
that  he  was  completely  master  both  of  his  style 
and  of  his  execution.  In  the  part  of  this  picture 
requiring  great  learning,  it  is  possible,  and  indeed 
highly  probable,  that  Raphael  consulted  the  most 
erudite  of  his  friends,  and  amongst  others  the 
Count  Castiglione,  who  had  just  come  to  settle  at 
Rome. 

"  However  this  may  be,  to  Raphael  alone  belongs 
the  great  honor  of  having  succeeded  in  represent- 
ing, in  a  single  living  and  distinct  image,  the  devel- 
opment of  Greek  philosophy.  It  was  Raphael  who 
conceived  the  idea  of  grouping  the  personages 
according  to  the  rank  they  occupy  in  history,  and 
rendered  the  tendencies  of  these  philosophers  ap- 
parent, not  merely  by  ingenious  grouping,  but  also 
by  their  actions,  their  attitudes,  and  countenances. 

"This  fresco,  in  which  he  rose  to  such  dignity 
and  to  such  a  grand  style,  is  justly  considered  as 
the  most  magnificent  work  the  master  ever  pro- 
duced. It  does,  indeed,  unite  the  technical  experi- 
ence of  drawing,  coloring,  and  touch  —  the  conquests 
of  the  more  modern  schools  —  to  the  severity 
bequeathed  to  them  by  the  more  ancient  ones.  .  .  . 

"  A  great  era  in  arts,  as  in  literature,  does  not 
always  follow  the  appearance  of  an  extraordinary 
genius.  It  comes  on  gradually,  and  its  progress 
may  be  noted.  It  has  its  infancy,  and  with  it  the 


RAPHAEL   OF  URBIXO.  129 

simplicity  belonging  to  that  age ;  then  its  youth, 
with  the  grace  and  sentiments  natural  to  youth; 
afterwards  maturity,  with  its  increased  power. 

"  Raphael  was  the  highest  expression  of  the  art 
of  the  sixteenth  century ;  he  attained  its  greatest 
perfection.  He  was  a  continuation  of  the  chain  of 
artists  in  his  time,  and  was  its  last  and  brightest 
link." 

Eugene  Muntz  calls  this  papal  hall,  the  Stanza 
della  Segnatura,  "  the  most  splendid  sanctuary  of 
modern  art.  The  profundity  of  ideas,  the  nobility 
of  the  style,  and  the  youthful  vitality  which  pre- 
vails in  every  detail  of  the  decoration,  make  up  a 
monumental  achievement  which  is  without  parallel 
in  the  annals  of  painting,  without  equal  even 
among  the  other  works  of  Raphael  himself." 

During  the  three  years'  work  in  this  hall,  Raphael 
painted  several  other  pictures :  the  magnificent 
portrait  of  Pope  Julius  II.,  now  in  the  Pitti  Palace ; 
the  "  Madonna  di  Foligno,"  now  in  the  Vatican,  a 
large  altar-piece  for  Sigismondo  Conti  di  Foligno, 
private  secretary  to  the  pope ;  the  Virgin  seated 
on  golden  clouds  surrounded  by  half-length  angels 
against  a  blue  sky.  "  A  burning  globe,  with  a  rain- 
bow above  it,  is  falling  from  the  sky.  According 
to  tradition  this  globe  is  a  bomb,  and  bears  refer- 
ence to  the  danger  incurred  by  Sigismondo  at  the 
siege  of  Foligno,  his  native  town,  and  the  rainbow 
may  be  considered  symbolical  of  the  reconciliation 
of  the  donor  with  God?' 

The  Madonna  della  Casa  d'Alba,  round,  on  wood, 


130  RAPHAEL   OF   URHIXO. 

only  nine  and  one-half  inches  in  diameter,  was 
originally  in  a  church  at  Nocera  de  Pagani,  in  the 
Neapolitan  States,  and  later  was  owned  by  the  Duke 
of  Alba,  at  Madrid.  The  Duchess  of  Alba  gave  it  to 
her  doctor,  in  her  will,  for  curing  her  of  a  dangerous 
disease.  She  died  very  soon,  and  the  doctor  was 
arrested  -on  suspicion  of  poison,  but  was  finally 
liberated.  The  painting  came  into  the  possession 
of  the  Emperor  of  Russia,  for  seventy  thousand 
dollars,  and  is  in  the  Hermitage. 

The  "  Madonna  del  Pesce,"  the  gem  of  the  Italian 
Gallery  of  the  Madrid  Museum,  which  some  per- 
sons rank  equal  to  the  Sistine  Madonna,  represents 
the  Virgin  holding  the  Child,  who  rests  his  hand  on 
an  open  book.  Tobias,  holding  a  fish,  and  led  by 
an  angel,  implores  a  cure  for  his  father's  blindness. 

Raphael  also  executed  for  the  wealthy  Agostino 
Chigi,  the  protege  of  Julius  II.  and  Leo  X.,  the 
frescos  in  the  Church  Santa  Maria  della  Pace. 
Cinelli  tells  this  anecdote:  "Raphael  of  Urbino 
had  painted  for  Agostino  Chigi,  at  Santa  Maria 
della  Pace,  some  prophets  and  sibyls,  on  which  he 
had  received  an  advance  of  five  hundred  scudi. 
One  day  he  demanded  of  Agostino's  cashier  (Giulio 
Borghesi)  the  remainder  of  the  sum  at  which  he 
estimated  his  work.  The  cashier,  being  astonished 
at  this  demand,  and  thinking  that  the  sum  already 
paid  was  sufficient,  did  not  reply.  '  Cause  the  work 
to  be  estimated  by  a  judge  of  painting,'  replied 
Raphael,  'and  you  will  see  how  moderate  my 
demand  is.' 


RAPHAEL   OF  URBINO,  131 

"  Giulio  Borghesi  thought  of  Michael  Angelo  for 
this  valuation,  and  begged  him  to  go  to  the  church 
and  estimate  the  figures  of  Raphael.  Possibly  he 
imagined  that  self-love,  rivalry,  and  jealousy  would 
lead  the  Florentine  to  lower  the  price  of  the  pic- 
tures. 

"  Michael  Angelo  went,  accompanied  by  the  cash- 
ier, to  Santa  Maria  della  Pace,  and,  as  he  was  con- 
templating the  fresco  without  uttering  a  word, 
Borghesi  questioned  him.  l  That  head,'  replied 
Michael  Angelo,  pointing  to  one  of  the  Sibyls, 
'  that  head  is  worth  a  hundred  scudi.'  .  .  .  '  And  the 
others  ?  '  asked  the  cashier.  ( The  others  are  not 
less.' 

"Some  who  witnessed  this  scene  related  it  to 
.Chigi.  He  heard  every  particular,  and,  ordering,  in 
addition  to  the  five  hundred  scudi  for  five  heads,  a 
hundred  scudi  to  be  paid  for  each  of  the  others, 
he  said  to  his  cashier,  '  Go  and  give  that  to  Raphael 
in  payment  for  his  heads,  and  behave  very  politely 
to  him,  so  that  he  may  be  satisfied ;  for  if  he  insists 
on  my  also  paying  for  the  drapery,  we  should 
probably  be  ruined.' " 

From  1512  to  1514,  Raphael  frescoed  the  second 
Vatican  hall,  La  Stanza  d'Eliodoro.  The  first 
mural  painting  was  "  The  Miraculous  Expulsion  of 
Heliodorus  from  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem,"  the 
angels  attacking  him  as  he  is  taking  the  money 
destined  for  widows  and  orphans. 

The  second  fresco  is  the  "  Miracle  of  Bolsena," 
where,  in  the  reign  of  Urban  IV.,  a  priest,  who 


132  RAPHAEL   OF  URBINO. 

doubted  the  reality  of  transubstantiation,  saw  the 
blood  flow  from  the  Host  while  he  was  celebrating 
mass.  These  are  called  the  most  richly  colored 
frescos  in  the  world,  exceeding  the  celebrated  ones 
of  Titian  in  the  Scuola  di  San  Antonio,  at  Padua. 

The  third  fresco  represents  the  "  Deliverance  of 
St.  Peter  from  Prison,"  and  the  fourth,  Attila 
arrested  in  his  march  on  Rome  in  452,  by  the  ap- 
parition of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul.  A  frightful 
hurricane  is  raging  at  the  time,  and  the  Huns  are 
filled  with  terror.  Leo  X.,  who  had  succeeded 
Julius  II.,  desired  to  be  immortalized  instead  of  St. 
Leo,  so,  with  a  touch  of  human  nature  not  entirely 
spiritual,  caused  himself  and  his  court,  driving  the 
French  under  Louis  XII.  out  of  Italy,  to  be  painted 
in  the  picture.  Passavant  says,  "A  few  very, 
animated  groups  of  soldiers  had  to  be  sacrificed ; 
but  on  the  whole  the  composition  gained  by  the 
alteration,  from  the  contrast  of  the  calm  gentleness 
of  the  pontiff  with  the  ferocity  of  the  barbarians. 
In  execution  this  fresco  may  be  considered  as  one 
of  the  most  perfect  by  this  master." 

While  this  second  room  in  the  Vatican  was  being 
painted,  Raphael,  as  usual,  was  engaged  also  in 
other  work. 

In  the  Chigi  palace,  or  Farnesina,  he  painted  the 
beautiful  fresco,  "  Galatea."  The  subject  is  taken 
from  the  narrative  of  Philostratus  about  the  Cy- 
clops. "  In  the  fresco,"  says  Passavant,  "  Galatea 
is  gently  sailing  on  the  waves.  Love  guides  the 
shell,  which  is  drawn  by  dolphins,  and  surrounded 


RAPHAEL   OF  UEEINO.  183 

by  tritons  and  marine  centaurs,  who  bear  the 
nymphs.  Little  cupids  in  the  air  are  shooting 
arrows  at  them.  All  these  figures  form  a  contrast 
with  the  beautiful  Galatea,  whose  languid  eyes  are 
raised  to  heaven,  the  centre  of  all  noble  aspirations. 

"Galatea  is  an  image  of  beauty  of  soul  united  to 
that  of  the  body.  It  is,  indeed,  a  sort  of  glorified 
nature ;  or,  rather,  a  goddess  clad  in  human  form. 
Raphael's  genius  defies  all  comparison,  and  has 
attained  in  this  masterpiece  a  height  which  ap- 
proaches very  nearly  to  perfection." 

This  fresco  won  the  most  enthusiastic  praise. 
His  friend,  Count  Castiglione,  wrote  him  in  hearty 
commendation,  and  Raphael  replied,  — 

"As  for  'the  Galatea,'  I  should  think  myself  a 
great  master  if  it  possessed  one-half  the  merits  of 
which  you  write,  but  I  read  in  your  words  the  love 
you  bear  to  myself.  To  paint  a  figure  truly  beauti- 
ful, I  should  see  many  beautiful  forms,  with  the 
further  provision  that  you  should  be  present  to 
choose  the  most  beautiful.  But,  good  judges  and 
beautiful  women  being  rare,  I  avail  myself  of  cer- 
tain ideas  which  come  into  my  mind.  If  this  idea 
has  any  excellence  in  art  I  know  not,  although  I 
labor  heartily  to  acquire  it." 

How  modest  the  spirit  of  this  letter,  and  how 
fully  it  shows  that  the  young  artist  lived  in  an 
ideal  world,  filled  with  exquisite  things  of  his  own 
creating.  Some  natures  always  see  roses  instead 
of  thorns,  sunshine  behind  the  clouds ;  believe 
in  goodness  and  purity  rather  than  in  sin  and 


134  RAPHAEL   OF  URBINO. 

sorrow ;  and  such  natures  make  the  world  lovelier 
by  their  uplifting  words  and  hopes. 

The  famous  artist,  now  thirty-one,  had  become 
wealthy,  and  had  built  for  himself  a  tasteful  and 
elegant  home  on  the  Via  di  Borgo  Nuova,  not  far 
from  the  Vatican.  "  The  ground  floor  of  the  fa9ade 
was  of  rustic  architecture,  with  five  arched  doors, 
four  of  which  were  for  the  offices,  and  the  one  in 
the  centre  for  the  entrance  to  the  house.  The 
upper  story  was  of  Doric  order,  with  coupled 
columns,  and  five  windows  surmounted  by  triangu- 
lar pediments.  The  entablature  which  surmounted 
the  whole  was  of  a  severe  style ;  imitated  from  the 
antique.  This  beautiful  building  no  longer  exists. 
The  angle  of  the  right  of  the  basement,  which  now 
forms  a  part  of  the  Accoramboni  palace,  is  the 
only  part  that  remains." 

Raphael's  friends,  with  that  well-meant,  but 
usually  injudicious  interference  which  is  so  com- 
mon, were  urging  him  to  bring  a  wife  into  his 
home.  His  uncle,  Simone  di  Battista  di  Ciarla; 
seems  to  have  been  anxious,  for  the  artist  writes 
him  in  1514,  "As  to  taking  a  wife,  I  will  say,  in 
regard  to  her  whom  you  destined  for  me,  that  I  am 
very  glad  and  thank  God  for  not  having  taken 
either  her  or  another.  And  in  this  I  have  been 
wiser  than  you  who  wished  to  give  her  to  me.  I 
am  convinced  that  you  see  yourself  that  I  should 
not  have  got  on  as  I  have  done." 

Another  person  seemed  equally  anxious  for  his 
marriage.  Cardinal  Bibiena,  who  had  been 


RAPHAEL   OF   URBINO.  135 

Raphael's  intimate  friend  when  he  lived  in  Urbino, 
had  long  been  desirous  that  he  should  marry  Maria, 
the  daughter  of  Antonio  Divizio  da  Bibiena,  his 
nephew.  Evidently  Raphael  was  engaged  to  her, 
for  he  writes  to  this  uncle,  Simone,  "I  cannot 
withdraw  my  word ;  we  are  nearer  than  ever  to  the 
conclusion."  As  the  matter  was  deferred  year  by 
year  —  as  many  writers  believe,  because  Raphael, 
loving  Margherita,  was  unwilling  to  marry 
another  —  he  was  saved  from  the  seeming  necessity 
of  keeping  his  promise,  by  Maria's  death  some  time 
previous  to  his  own.  She  is  buried  in  Raphael's 
chapel  in  the  Pantheon,  not  far  from  his  grave.  He 
had  met  and  loved  Margherita  in  1508,  six  years 
earlier,  and  possibly  after  his  engagement  to  Maria. 
Margherita  was  in  his  house  when  he  died,  and  to 
her  he  left  an  adequate  portion  of  his  property. 

This  year,  1514,  Bramante,  the  architect  of  St. 
Peter's,  having  died,  Raphael  was  appointed  his 
successor.  Perceiving  that  the  four  columns  which 
were  to  support  the  cupola  had  too  weak  a  founda- 
tion, the  first  work  was  to  strengthen  these.  He 
executed  a  plan  of  the  church,  which  some  think 
superior  to  that  which  Michael  Angelo  carried  out 
after  Raphael's  death.  He  studied  carefully  the 
architectural  works  of  Vitruvius,  and  planned  sev- 
eral beautiful  structures  in  Rome. 

Raphael  also  had  the  oversight  of  all  the  excava- 
tions in  and  around  Rome,  so  that  pieces  of  an- 
tique statuary,  which  were  often  found,  might  be 
carefully  preserved.  "  To  this  end,"  wrote  Leo  X., 


136  RAPHAEL   OF  URBINO. 

"I  command  every  one,  of  whatever  condition  or 
rank  he  may  be,  noble  or  not,  titled  or  of  low 
estate,  to  make  you,  as  superintendent  of  this 
matter,  acquainted  with  every  stone  or  marble 
which  shall  be  discovered  within  the  extent  of 
country  designated  by  me,  who  desire  that  every 
one  failing  to  do  so  shall  be  judged  by  you,  and 
fined  from  one  hundred  to  three  hundred  gold 
crowns." 

The  third  hall  of  the  pope,  called  the  Stanza  del 
Incendio,  was  painted  from  1514  to  1517.  The 
first  fresco  is  "  The  Oath  of  Leo  III.,"  who,  brought 
before  the  Emperor  Charlemagne  for  trial,  was 
acquitted  through  a  supernatural  voice  proclaiming 
that  no  one  had  the  right  to  judge  the  pope. 

The  second  fresco  is  "  The  Coronation  of  Charle- 
magne by  Leo  III.,"  thus  signifying  that  the  spirit- 
ual power  is  above  the  temporal  power.  The  two 
principal  portraits  are,  however,  Leo  X.  and  Francis 
I.,  who  formed  an  alliance  in  1515. 

The  third  and  finest  picture  is  "  The  Conflagra- 
tion of  the  Borgo  Vecchio  at  Rome."  The  other 
pictures  were  executed  in  part  by  the  pupils  of 
Raphael.  This  was  by  his  own  hand.  In  847  a 
fire  broke  out  in  Rome,  which  extended  from  the 
Vatican  to  the  Mausoleum  of  Adrian.  The  danger 
from  the  high  wind  was  very  great,  when  Pope 
Leo  IV.  implored  divine  aid,  and  at  once  the  flames 
assumed  the  form  of  a  cross,  and  the  fire  was 
quenched.  "  Several  of  the  figures,"  says  Passa- 
vant,  "  are  considered  as  perfect  and  inimitable, 


RAPHAEL   OF   URBINO.  137 

amongst  others  the  two  beautiful  and  powerful 
women  who  are  bringing  water  in  vases,  and  whose 
forms  are  so  admirably  delineated  under  their 
garments  agitated  by  the  wind." 

The  last  fresco  shows  the  "  Victory  of  Leo  IV. 
over  the  Saracens  at  Ostia."  The  pope,  Leo  IV., 
with  the  face  of  Leo  X.,  is  on  the  shore,  engaged 
in  prayer. 

At  this  time  Raphael  made  sepia  sketches  for  the 
Loggie  leading  to  the  apartments  of  the  pope ; 
thirteen  arcades,  each  arcade  containing  four  prin- 
cipal pictures.  Forty-eight  of  these  scenes  are 
taken  from  the  Old  Testament,  and  four  from  the 
life  of  Christ.  Taken  together,  they  are  called 
'•'Raphael's  Bible."  Vasari  said  of  the  decora- 
tions in  the  Loggie,  "  It  is  impossible  to  execute 
or  to  conceive  a  more  exquisite  work."  Catherine 
II.  of  Russia  had  all  these  Loggie  paintings  copied 
on  canvas,  and  placed  in  the  Hermitage,  in  a  gallery 
constructed  for  them,  like  that  in  the  Vatican. 
This  gallery  cost  a  million  and  a  half  of  dollars. 

In  these  busy  years,  1515  to  1516,  the  famous 
cartoons  for  the  Sistine  Chapel  were  made.  Sixtus 
IV.  had  built  the  chapel.  Michael  Angelo,  under 
Julius  II.,  had  painted  in  it  his  "  History  of  the 
Creation,"  and  "  Prophets  and  Sibyls."  And  now 
Raphael  was  asked  to  make  cartoons  for  ten  pieces 
of  tapestry,  to  be  hung  before  the  wainscoting  on 
high  festivals.  The  cartoons  are,  "  The  Miraculous 
Draught  of  Fishes,"  "  Christ's  Charge  to  Peter," 
"  The  Martyrdom  of  St.  Stephen,"  "  The  Healing 


138  RAPHAEL   OF  URBJNO. 

of  the  Laine  Man,"  "  The  Death  of  Ananias,"  "  The 
Conversion  of  St.  Paul,"  "Elymas  struck  with 
Blindness,"  "Paul  and  Barnabas  at  Lystra,"  "St. 
Paul  Preaching  at  Athens,"  and  "Saint  Paul  in 
Prison."  The  cartoons  were  sent  to  Arras,  in 
Flanders,  and  wrought  in  wool,  silk,  and  gold. 
Brought  to  Eome  in  1519,  they  were  hung  in  St. 
Peter's,  on  the  feast  of  St.  Stephen. 

The  enthusiasm  of  the  Romans  was  unbounded. 
Vasari  says  this  work  "  seems  rather  to  have  been 
performed  by  miracle  than  by  the  aid  of  man." 
These  tapestries,  after  many  changes,  are  now  in 
the  Vatican,  much  soiled  and  faded.  Of  the  car- 
toons, twelve  feet  by  from  fourteen  to  eighteen 
feet,  with  figures  above  life-size,  seven  of  them  are 
to  be  seen  in  the  South  Kensington  Museum. 
They  were  purchased  at  Arras  by  Charles  I.,  on 
the  recommendation  of  Rubens.  They  are  yearly 
studied  by  thousands  of  visitors.  Grimm  calls  the 
cartoons  "Raphael's  greatest  productions."  He 
considers  the  "Death  of  Ananias"  "as  the  most 
purely  dramatic  of  all  his  compositions." 

"  Compared  with  these,"  says  Hazlitt,  "  all  other 
pictures  look  like  oil  and  varnish ;  we  are  stopped 
and  attracted  by  the  coloring,  the  pencilling,  the 
finishing,  the  instrumentalities  of  art ;  but  here  the 
painter  seems  to  have  flung  his  mind  upon  the 
canvas.  His  thoughts,  his  great  ideas  alone,  pre- 
vail ;  there  is  nothing  between  us  and  the  subject ; 
we  look  through  a  frame  and  see  Scripture  histories, 
and  are  made  actual  spectators  in  miraculous  events. 


RAPHAEL   OF  UEEINO.  139 

"Not  to  speak  it  profanely,  they  are  a  sort  of  a 
revelation  of  the  subjects  of  which  they  treat ; 
there  is  an  ease  and  freedom  of  manner  about  them 
which  brings  preternatural  characters  and  situa- 
tions home  to  us  with  the  familiarity  of  every-day 
occurrences ;  and  while  the  figures  fill,  raise,  and 
satisfy  the  mind,  they  seem  to  have  cost  the 
painter  nothing.  Everywhere  else  we  see  the 
means ;  here  we  arrive  at  the  end  apparently 
without  any  means." 

Raphael  was  now  overwhelmed  with  orders  for 
pictures.  He  had  shown  worldly  wisdom  —  a  thing 
not  always  possessed  by  genius  —  in  having  his 
works  engraved  by  men  under  his  own  supervision, 
so  that  they  were  everywhere  scattered  among  the 
people. 

In  1516  he  decorated  the  bath-room  of  his  friend 
Cardinal  Bibiena,  who  lived  on  the  third  floor  of 
the  Vatican.  The  first  sketch  represents  the  Birth 
of  Venus ;  then  Venus  and  Cupid,  seated  on  dol- 
phins, journey  across  the  sea ;  she  is  wounded  by 
Cupid's  dart;  she  pulls  out  the  thorn  which  has 
pierced  her.  The  blood,  falling  on  the  white  rose, 
gives  us,  according  to  tradition,  the  rich  red  rose. 
These  paintings  were  certainly  of  a  different  nature 
from  the  others  in  the  Vatican,  and,  while  Passa- 
vant  thinks  it  strange  that  a  spiritually  minded 
cardinal  should  have  desired  such  pictures,  they 
were  nevertheless  greatly  admired  and  copied. 

This  same  year,  1516,  one  of  Raphael's  most 
celebrated  Madonnas  was  painted,  the  one  oftener 


140  -RAPHAEL   OF  URBINO. 

copied,  probably,  than  any  other  picture  in  the 
world,  "The  Madonna  della  Sedia,"  now  in  the 
Pitti  Palace.  The  Virgin,  with  an  uncommonly 
sweet  and  beautiful  face,  is  seated  in  a  chair  (sedia), 
with  both  arras  encircling  the  infant  Saviour,  his 
baby  head  resting  against  her  own.  Grimm  says, 
"Mary  has  been  painted  by  Raphael  in  different 
degrees  of  earthly  rank  ;  the  Madonna  della  Sedia 
approaches  the  aristocratic,  but  only  in  outward 
show,  for  the  poorest  mother  might  sit  there  as  she 
does.  Gold  and  variegated  colors  have  been  used 
without  stint.  .  .  .  The  dress  of  the  mother  is  light 
blue ;  the  mantle  which  she  has  drawn  about  her 
shoulders  is  green,  with  red  and  willow-green  stripes 
and  gold-embroidered  border ;  her  sleeves  are  red 
faced  with  gold  at  the  wrists.  A  grayish  brown 
veil  with  reddish  brown  stripes  is  wound  about  her 
hair ;  the  little  dress  of  the  child  is  orange-colored, 
and  the  back  of  the  chair  red  velvet.  The  golden 
lines  radiating  from  the  halo  around  the  head  of 
the  child  form  a  cross,  and  over  the  mother's  and 
John's  float  light  golden  rings.  All  the  tones  are 
flower-like  and  clear.  ...  A  harmonious  glow  irra- 
diates it,  which,  partaking  of  a  spiritual  as  well 
as  a  material  nature,  constitutes  the  peculiarity  of 
this  work,  and  defies  all  attempts  at  reproduction. 
Pictorial  art  has  produced  few  such  works  which 
actually  in  their  beauty  exceed  nature  herself,  who 
does  not  seem  to  wish  to  unite  so  many  advantages 
in  one  person  or  place.  .  .  . 

"  Raphael's  Madonnas  have  the  peculiarity  that 


BAP  HA  EL   OF   URBINO.  141 

they  are  not  distinctively  national.  They  are  not 
Italians  whom  he  paints,  but  women  raised  above 
what  is  national.  Leonardo's,  Correggio's,  Titian's, 
Murillo's,  and  Rubens's  Madonnas  are  all  in  some 
respects  affected  by  their  masters'  nationality ;  a 
faint  suggestion  of  Italian  or  Spanish  or  Flemish 
nature  pervades  their  forms.  Raphael  alone  could 
give  to  his  Madonnas  that  universal  human  loveli- 
ness, and  that  beauty  which  is  a  possession  com- 
mon to  the  European  nations  compared  with  other 
races. 

"His  Sistine  Madonna  soars  above  us  as  our 
ideal  of  womanly  beauty  ;  and  yet,  strange  to  say, 
despite  this  universality,  she  gives  to  each  individual 
the  impression  that,  owing  to  some  special  affinity, 
he  has  the  privilege  of  wholly  understanding  her. 
Shakespeare's  and  Goethe's  feminine  creations  in- 
spire the  same  feeling.  .  .  . 

"  All  Raphael's  works  are  youthful  works.  After 
finishing  the  Sistine  Madonna,  he  lived  only  three 
years.  At  thirty-five  years  of  age  (and  he  did  not 
survive  much  beyond  this),  the  largest  portion  of 
human  life  is  often  still  in  the  future.  The  events 
of  each  day  continue  to  surprise  us,  and  to  seem 
like  adventures.  Raphael  was  full  of  these  fresh 
hopes  and  anticipations  when  a  cruel  fate  snatched 
him  away.  His  last  works  betray  the  same  youth- 
ful exhilaration  in  labor  as  his  first.  His  studies 
from  nature  made  at  this  time  have  a  freshness 
and  grace  which,  regarded  as  personal  manifesta- 
tions of  his  genius,  are  as  valuable  as  his  paintings. 


142  RAPHAEL  OF  URBINO. 

He  was  still  in  process  of  development.  .  .  .  What 
in  our  later  years  we  call  illusions  still  enchanted 
him.  The  easy,  untrammelled  life  at  the  court  of 
the  pope  wore  for  him,  to  the  last,  a  romantic 
glamour,  and  the  admiration  of  those  who  only 
meant  to  flatter  sounded  sweet  in  his  ears,  even 
while  he  saw  through  it.  Everything  continued  to 
serve  him ;  with  the  gospel  of  defeat  his  soul  was 
still  unacquainted." 

The  Sistine  Madonna,  with  the  Virgin  standing 
on  the  clouds  in  the  midst  of  myriads  of  cherubs' 
heads,  St.  Sixtus  kneeling  on  the  left,  and  St. 
Barbara  on  the  right,  was  painted  in  1518  for  the 
Benedictine  Monastery  of  San  Sisto,  at  Piacenza, 
from  which  it  was  purchased  in  1754  by  Augustus 
III.,  Elector  of  Saxony,  for  forty  thousand  dollars. 
It  was  received  at  Dresden  with  great  joy,  the 
throne  of  Saxony  being  displaced  in  order  to  give 
this  divine  product  of  genius  a  fitting  home.  It  is 
said  that  the  famous  Correggio,  standing  before  this 
picture,  exclaimed  with  pride,  "  I  too  am  an  artist !  " 

Passavant  says,  "  It  was  the  last  Virgin  created 
by  the  genius  of  Raphael ;  and,  as  if  he  had  fore- 
seen that  this  Madonna  would  be  his  last,  he  made 
it  an  apotheosis." 

It  is  interesting  to  sit  in  the  Drssden  gallery 
alone,  before  the  Sistine  Madonna,  which  has 
the  face  of  the  beloved  Margherita,  and  note  the 
hush  that  comes  upon  the  people  when  they  pass 
over  the  threshold.  They  seem  to  enter  into  the 
feelings  of  the  artist.  It  is  said  that  many  a  poor 


RAPHAEL    OF   URBINO.  143 

and  lonely  woman,  bent  with  years,  has  wept  before 
this  painting. 

The  eyes  of  the  Virgin  look  at  you,  but  they  do 
not  see  you.  The  eyes  are  thinking  — looking  back 
into  her  past  with  its  mysteries ;  looking  forward 
perchance  into  a  veiled  but  significant  future. 
These  eyes,  once  seen,  are  never  forgotten,  and  you 
go  again  and  again  to  look  at  them. 

Raphael's  "  Christ  Bearing  the  Cross  "  (Lo  Spa- 
simo)  is  considered  a  masterpiece,  from  its  draw- 
ing and  expression.  Some  think  it  equal  to  "  The 
Transfiguration."  The  ship  which  was  carrying  it 
to  Palermo  was  lost  with  all  on  board.  Nothing 
was  recovered  save  this  picture,  which,  uninjured, 
floated  in  a  box  into  the  harbor  of  Genoa.  It  is 
now  in  Madrid. 

Another  well-known  work  of  Raphael  is  "  St. 
Cecilia,"  listening  to  the  singing  of  six  angels,  her 
eyes  raised  to  heaven  in  ecstasy.  A  musical  in- 
strument is  slipping  from  her  hand  while  she 
listens,  entranced,  to  playing  so  much  more  won- 
derful than  her  own.  On  her  right  are  St.  Paul 
and  St.  John ;  on  her  left  Mary  Magdalene,  with 
St.  Augustine.  Cecilia  was  a  rich  and  noble  Roman 
lady  who  lived  in  the  reign  of  Alexander  Severus. 
She  was  married  at  sixteen  to  Valerian,  who,  with 
his  brother  Tiburtius,  was  converted  to  Christianity 
by  her  prayers.  Both  these  men  were  beheaded 
because  they  refused  to  sacrifice  to  idols,  and 
Cecilia  was  shortly  after  condemned  to  death  by 
Almachius,  Prefect  of  Rome.  She  was  shut  up 


144  RAPHAEL   OF  URBINO. 

in  her  own  bath-room,  and  blazing  fires  kindled 
that  the  hot  vapor  might  destroy  her ;  but  she  was 
kept  alive,  says  the  legend,  "  for  God  sent  a  cooling 
shower  which  tempered  the  heat  of  the  fire." 

The  prefect  then  sent  a  man  to  her  palace,  to 
behead  her,  but  he  left  her  only  half  killed.  The 
Christians  found  her  bathed  in  her  blood,  and  dur- 
ing three  days  she  still  preached  and  taught,  like  a 
doctor  of  the  church,  with  such  sweetness  and  elo- 
quence that  four  hundred  pagans  were  converted. 
On  the  third  day  she  was  visited  by  Pope  Urban  I., 
to  whose  care  she  tenderly  committed  the  poor 
whom  she  nourished,  and  to  him  she  bequeathed 
the  palace  in  which  she  had  lived,  that  it  might  be 
consecrated  as  a  temple  to  the  Saviour.  She  died 
in  the  third  century. 

This  masterpiece  of  color  was  sent  to  Bologna, 
having  been  ordered  by  a  noble  Bolognese  lady, 
Elena  Duglioni,  for  a  chapel  which  she  built  to  St. 
Cecilia.  Raphael  sent  the  picture  to  his  artist 
friend  Francesco  Francia,  asking  that  he  "make 
any  correction  he  pleased,  if  he  noticed  any 
defect."  It  is  stated  that  Francia  was  so  over- 
come at  the  sight  of  this  picture  that  he  died  from 
excessive  grief  because  he  felt  that  he  could  never 
equal  it. 

Shelley  wrote  concerning  this  work,  "  Standing 
before  the  picture  of  St.  Cecilia,  you  forget  that  it 
is  a  picture  as  you  look  at  it,  and  yet  it  is  most 
unlike  any  of  those  things  which  we  call  reality. 
It  is  of  the  inspired  and  ideal  kind,  and  seems  to 


RAPHAEL   OF   URBINO.  145 

have  been  conceived  and  executed  in  a  similar 
state  of  feeling  to  that  which  produced  among  the 
ancients  those  perfect  specimens  of  poetry  and 
sculpture  which  are  the  baffling  models  of  succeed- 
ing generations.  There  is  a  unity  and  a  perfection 
in  it  of  an  incommunicable  kind.  The  central 
figure,  St.  Cecilia,  seems  wrapt  in  such  inspiration 
as  produced  her  image  in  the  painter's  mind;  her 
deep,  dark,  eloquent  eyes  lifted  up,  her  chestnut 
hair  flung  back  from  her  forehead :  she  holds  an 
organ  in  her  hands ;  her  countenance,  as  it  were, 
calmed  by  the  depth  of  her  passion  and  rapture, 
and  penetrated  throughout  with  the  warm  and 
radiant  light  of  life.  She  is  listening  to  the  music 
of  heaven,  and,  as  I  imagine,  has  just  ceased  to 
sing,  for  the  four  figures  that  surround  her  evi- 
dently point,  by  their  attitudes,  towards  her,  partic- 
ularly St.  John,  who,  with  a  tender,  yet  impas- 
sioned gesture,  bends  his  countenance  towards  her, 
languid  with  the  depth  of  his  emotion.  At  her 
feet  lie  various  instruments  of  music,  broken  and 
unstrung.  Of  the  coloring  I  do  not  speak ;  it 
eclipses  Nature,  yet  it  has  all  her  truth  and  soft- 
ness." 

Raphael  was  now  loaded  with  honors.  Henry 
VIII.  urged  him  to  visit  England  and  become 
attached  to  his  court.  Francis  I.  was  eager  to 
make  him  court  painter  of  France.  Often  the 
artist  shut  himself  up  in  his  palace,  and  applied 
himself  so  closely  to  his  books  and  pictures  that 
people  said  he  was  melancholy.  He  was  so  deeply 


146  RAPHAEL   OF  URBINO. 

interested  in  history  that  he  thought  of  writing 
some  historical  works.  He  had  planned  and  par- 
tially completed  a  book  on  ancient  Eome,  which 
should  reproduce  to  the  world  the  city  in  its  former 
grandeur.  He  left  a  manuscript  on  art  and  artists, 
which  Vasari  found  most  valuable  in  his  biographies. 
He  sent  artists  into  all  the  neighboring  countries  to 
collect  studies  from  the  antique.  He  loved  poetry 
and  philosophy. 

Several  artists  lived  in  his  home,  for  whom  he 
provided  as  though  they  were  his  children.  Among 
others  in  his  house  lived  Fabius  of  Ravenna,  con- 
cerning whom  Calcagnini,  the  pope's  secretary, 
wrote,  "  He  is  an  old  man  of  stoical  probity, 
and  of  whom  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  whether 
his  learning  or  affability  is  the  greater.  Through 
him  Hippocrates  speaks  Latin,  and  has  laid  aside 
his  ancient  defective  expressions.  This  most  holy 
man  has  this  peculiar  and  very  uncommon  quality 
of  despising  money  so  much  as  to  refuse  it  when 
offered  to  him,  unless  forced  to  accept  it  by  the 
most  urgent  necessity.  However,  he  receives  from 
the  pope  an  annual  pension,  which  he  divides 
amongst  his  friends  and  relations.  He  himself  lives 
on  herbs  and  lettuces,  like  the  Pythagoreans,  and 
dwells  in  a  hole  which  might  justly  be  named  the 
tub  of  Diogenes.  He  would  far  rather  die  than 
not  pursue  his  studies.  .  .  . 

"He  is  cared  for  as  a  child  by  the  very  rich 
Raphael  da  Urbino,  who  is  so  much  esteemed  by 
the  pope ;  he  is  a  young  man  of  the  greatest  kind- 


RAPHAEL   OF  UEBINO.  147 

ness  and  of  an  admirable  mind.  He  is  distin- 
guished by  the  highest  qualities.  Thus  he  is, 
perhaps,  the  first  of  all  painters,  as  well  in  theory 
as  in  practice ;  moreover,  he  is  an  architect  of  such 
rare  talent  that  he  invents  and  executes  things 
which  men  of  the  greatest  genius  deemed  impossi- 
ble. I  make  an  exception  only  in  Vitruvius,  whose 
principles  he  does  not  teach,  but  whom  he  defends 
or  attacks  with  the  surest  proofs,  and  with  so 
much  grace  that  not  even  the  slightest  envy  min- 
gles in  his  criticism. 

"At  present  he  is  occupied  with  a  wonderful 
work,  which  will  be  scarcely  credited  by  posterity 
(I  do  not  allude  to  the  basilica  of  the  Vatican, 
where  he  directs  the  works) :  it  is  the  town  of  Rome, 
which  he  is  restoring  in  almost  its  ancient  grandeur ; 
for,  by  removing  the  highest  accumulations  of  earth, 
digging  down  to  the  lowest  foundations,  and  restor- 
ing everything  according  to  the  descriptions  of 
ancient  authors,  he  has  so  carried  Pope  Leo  and 
the  Romans  along  with  him  as  to  induce  every  one 
to  look  on  him  as  a  god  sent  from  heaven  to  restore 
to  the  ancient  city  her  ancient  majesty. 

"  With  all  this  he  is  so  far  from  being  proud  that 
he  comes  as  a  friend  to  every  one,  and  does  not 
shun  the  words  and  remarks  of  any  one ;  he  likes 
to  hear  his  views  discussed  in  order  to  obtain  in- 
struction and  to  instruct  others,  which  he  regards 
as  the  object  of  life.  He  respects  and  honors 
Fabius  as  a  master  and  a  father,  speaking  to  him 
of  everything  and  following  his  counsels." 


148  E  A  PITA  EL   OF  URBINO. 

A  rare  man,  indeed,  this  Raphael ;  not  proud,  not 
envious,  but  confiding,  learning  from  everybody, 
sincere  and  unselfish. 

For  the  fourth  hall  in  the  Vatican,  the  Sala  di 
Costantino,  Raphael  made  the  cartoon  for  "The 
Battle  of  Constantino. "  In  the  centre  of  the  pic- 
ture Constantine  is  dashing  across  the  battle-field  on 
a  white  horse,  with  his  spear  levelled  at  Maxentius, 
who,  with  his  army,  is  driven  back  into  the  Tiber. 
The  whole  picture  is  remarkable  for  life  and  spirit. 

Raphael  now  undertook  the  paintings  in  the 
Loggie  of  the  Farnesina,  for  Agostino  Chigi,  —  the 
fable  of  Cupid  and  Psyche,  from  Apuleius.  "A 
certain  king  had  three  daughters,  of  whom  Psyche, 
the  youngest,  excites  the  jealousy  of  Venus  by  her 
beauty.  The  goddess  accordingly  directs  her  son 
Cupid  to  punish  the  princess  by  inspiring  her  with 
love  for  an  unworthy  individual.  Cupid  himself 
becomes  enamoured  of  her,  shows  her  to  the  Graces, 
and  carries  her  off.  He  visits  her  by  night,  warn- 
ing her  not  to  indulge  in  curiosity  as  to  his  appear- 
ance. Psyche,  however,  instigated  by  her  envious 
sisters,  disobeys  the  injunction.  She  lights  a  lamp, 
a  drop  of  heated  oil  from  which  awakens  her  sleep- 
ing lover.  Cupid  upbraids  her,  and  quits  her  in 
anger.  Psyche  wanders  about,  filled  with  despair. 
Meanwhile  Venus  has  been  informed  of  her  son's 
attachment,  imprisons  him,  and  requests  Juno 
and  Ceres  to  aid  her  in  seeking  for  Psyche,  which 
both  goddesses  decline  to  do.  She  then  drives  in 
her  dove-chariot  to  Jupiter,  and  begs  him  to  grant 


RAPHAEL   OF  URBINO.  149 

her  the  assistance  of  Mercury.  Her  request  is 
complied  with,  and  Mercury  flies  forth  to  search 
for  Psyche.  Venus  torments  her  in  every  conceiv- 
able manner,  and  imposes  impossible  tasks  on  her, 
which,  however,  with  the  aid  of  friends,  she  is 
enabled  to  perform.  At  length  she  is  desired  to 
bring  a  casket  from  the  infernal  regions,  and  even 
this,  to  the  astonishment  of  Venus,  she  succeeds 
in  accomplishing.  Cupid,  having  at  length  escaped 
from  his  captivity,  begs  Jupiter  to  grant  him 
Psyche ;  Jupiter  kisses  him,  and  commands  Mer- 
cury to  summon  the  gods  to  deliberate  on  the  mat- 
ter. The  messenger  of  the  gods  then  conducts 
Psyche  to  Olympus,  she  becomes  immortal,  and  the 
gods  celebrate  the  nuptial  banquet.  In  this  pleas- 
ing fable  Psyche  obviously  represents  the  human 
soul  purified  by  passions  and  misfortunes,  and  thus 
fitted  for  the  enjoyment  of  celestial  happiness." 

Raphael  had  time  only  to  make  cartoons  for  the 
greater  part  of  this  work,  while  his  pupils  executed 
them.  The  paintings  were  criticised,  and  it  was 
said  that  the  talent  of  Raphael  was  declining. 

Hurt  by  such  an  unwarrantable  opinion,  Raphael 
gladly  accepted  an  order  from  Cardinal  Giuliano 
de'  Medici  for  a  "  Transfiguration"  for  the  Cathedral 
of  Narbonne.  At  the  same  time  the  cardinal 
ordered  the  "  Raising  of  Lazarus  "  from  Sebastiano 
del  Piombo.  Michael  Angelo  made  the  drawings 
for  this  picture,  it  is  said,  so  that  this  work  might 
equal  or  surpass  that  of  Raphael.  When  the  latter 
was  apprised  of  this,  he  replied  cheerfully,  "  Michael 


150  RAPHAEL   OF  URBINO. 

Angelo  pays  me  a  great  honor,  since  it  is  in  reality 
himself  that  he  offers  as  my  rival  and  not 
Sebastiano." 

The  "Transfiguration,"  now  in  the  Vatican,  is  in 
two  sections.  In  the  upper  portion  Christ  has  risen 
into  the  air  above  Mount  Tabor,  and  has  appeared 
to  Peter,  James,  and  John,  on  the  mount.  At  this 
moment  the  voice  is  heard  saying,  "This  is  my 
beloved  Son:  hear  him." 

At  the  foot  of  the  mount,  an  afflicted  father,  fol- 
lowed by  a  crowd  of  people,  has  brought  his 
demoniac  boy  to  the  Apostles,  to  be  healed.  The 
disciples  point  to  the  Saviour  as  the  only  one  who 
has  the  power  to  cast  out  evil  spirits. 

Vasari  says,  "  In  this  work  the  master  has  of  a 
truth  produced  figures  and  heads  of  such  extraordi- 
nary beauty,  so  new,  so  varied,  and  at  all  points  so 
admirable,  that  among  the  many  works  executed 
by  his  hand  this,  by  the  common  consent  of  all 
artists,  is  declared  to  be  the  most  worthily 
renowned,  the  most  excellent,  the  most  divine. 
Whoever  shall  desire  to  see  in  what  manner  Christ 
transformed  into  the  Godhead  should  be  repre- 
sented, let  him  come  and  behold  it  in  this  picture. 
.  .  .  But  as  if  that  sublime  genius  had  gathered  all 
the  force  of  his  powers  into  one  effort,  whereby  the 
glory  and  the  majesty  of  art  should  be  made  mani- 
fest in  the  countenance  of  Christ :  having  completed 
that,  as  one  who  had  finished  the  great  work  which 
he  had  to  accomplish,  he  touched  the  pencils  no 
more,  being  shortly  afterwards  overtaken  by  death." 


RAPHAEL   OF  URBINO.  151 

Before  the  "Transfiguration"  was  completed, 
Raphael  was  seized  with  a  violent  fever,  probably 
contracted  through  his  researches  among  the  ruins 
of  Kome.  Weak  from  overwork,  he  seems  to  have 
realized  at  once  that  his  labors  were  finished.  He 
made  his  will,  giving  his  works  of  art  to  his  pupils  ; 
his  beautiful  home  to  Cardinal  Bibiena,  though  the 
cardinal  died  soon  after  without  ever  living  in  it ; 
a  thousand  crowns  to  purchase  a  house  whose 
rental  should  defray  the  expense  of  twelve  masses 
monthly  at  the  altar  of  his  chapel  in  the  Pantheon, 
which  he  had  long  before  made  ready  for  his  body ; 
and  the  rest  of  his  property  to  his  relatives  and 
Margherita. 

He  died  on  the  night  of  Good  Friday,  April  6, 
1520,  at  the  age  of  thirty-seven.  All  Rome  was 
bent  with  grief  at  the  death  of  its  idol.  He  lay  in 
state  in  his  beautiful  home,  on  a  catafalque  sur- 
rounded by  lighted  tapers,  the  unfinished  "  Trans- 
figuration "  behind  it. 

An  immense  crowd  followed  the  body  to  the 
Pantheon ;  his  last  beautiful  picture,  its  colors  yet 
damp,  being  carried  in  the  procession. 

His  friend  Cardinal  Pietro  Bembo  wrote  his 
epitaph  in  Latin :  "  Dedicated  to  Raphael  Sanzio, 
the  son  of  Giovanni  of  Urbino,  the  most  eminent 
painter,  who  emulated  the  ancients.  In  whom  the 
union  of  Nature  and  Art  is  easily  perceived.  He 
increased  the  glory  of  the  pontiffs  Julius  II. 
and  Leo  X.  by  his  works  of  painting  and  archi- 
tecture. He  lived  exactly  thirty-seven  years, 


152  RAPHAEL   OF  UltBINO. 

and  died  on  the   anniversary  of  his   birth,  April 
6,  1520. 

"  Living,  great  Nature  feared  he  might  outvie 
Her  works,  and,  dying,  fears  herself  to  die." 

Count  Castiglione  wrote  to  his  mother,  "It 
seems  as  if  I  were  not  in  Rome,  since  my  poor 
Raphael  is  here  no  longer."  The  pope,  Leo  X., 
could  not  be  comforted,  and,  it  is  said,  burst  into 
tears,  exclaiming,  "  Ora  pro  nobis."  The  Mantuan 
Ambassador  wrote  home  the  day  after  Raphael's 
death,  "Nothing  is  talked  of  here  but  the  loss  of 
the  man  who  at  the  close  of  his  three-and-thirtieth 
year  [thirty-seventh]  has  now  ended  his  first  life  ; 
his  second,  that  of  his  posthumous  fame,  independ- 
ent of  death  and  transitory  things,  through  his 
works,  and  in  what  the  learned  will  write  in  his 
praise,  must  continue  forever." 

Three  hundred  and  thirteen  years  after  his  death 
his  tomb  was  opened,  in  1833,  and  the  complete 
skeleton  was  found.  After  five  weeks,  the  precious 
remains  were  enclosed  in  a  leaden  coffin,  and  that 
in  a  marble  sarcophagus,  and  reburied  at  night,  the 
Pantheon  being  illuminated,  and  the  chief  artists 
and  cultivated  people  of  the  city  bearing  torches  in 
the  reverent  procession. 

Dead  at  thirty -seven,  and  yet  how  amazing  the 
amount  of  work  accomplished.  He  left  two  hun- 
dred and  eighty-seven  pictures  and  five  hundred 
and  seventy-six  drawings  and  studies.  Michael 
Angelo  said  Raphael  owed  more  to  his  wonderful 


RAPHAEL    OF  UEBINO.  153 

industry  than  to  his  genius.  When  asked  once  by 
his  pupils  how  he  accomplished  so  much,  Raphael 
replied,  "  From  my  earliest  childhood  I  have  made 
it  a  principle  never  to  neglect  anything." 

Passavant  says,  "He  was  the  most  ideal  artist 
that  God  has  ever  created."  His  maxim  was,  "  We 
must  not  represent  things  as  they  are,  but  as  they 
should  be." 

Says  Charles  C.  Perkins  of  Boston,  "  Throughout 
all  his  works  there  is  not  an  expression  of  face,  or 
a  contour,  whether  of  muscle  or  drapery,  which  is 
not  exactly  suited  to  its  end  ;  nor  in  the  thousands 
of  figures  which  he  drew  or  painted  can  we  recall 
an  ungraceful  or  a  mannered  line  or  pose.  This 
was  because  of  all  artists  since  the  Greeks,  he  had 
the  most  perfect  feeling  for  true  beauty.  The 
beautiful  was  his  special  field,  and  hence  he  is  first 
among  his  kind.  Leonardo  had  more  depth, 
Michael  Angelo  more  grandeur,  Correggio  more 
sweetness ;  but  none  of  them  approached  Raphael 
as  an  exponent  of  beauty  whether  in  young  or  old, 
in  mortals  or  immortals,  in  earthly  or  divine  beings. 

"Raphael  was  in  truth  the  greatest  of  artists, 
because  the  most  comprehensive,  blending  as  he  did 
the  opposing  tendencies  of  the  mystics  and  the 
naturalists  into  a  perfect  whole  by  reverent  study 
of  nature  and  of  the  antique.  Bred  in  a  devotional 
school  of  art,  and  transferred  to  an  atmosphere 
charged  with  classical  ideas,  he  retained  enough  of 
the  first,  while  he  absorbed  enough  of  the  second, 
to  make  him  a  painter  of  works  Christian  in  spirit 


154  RAPHAEL   OF  URBINO. 

and  Greek  in  elegance   and   purity   of   form   and 
style." 

Raphael  will  live,  not  only  through  his  works 
but  through  the  adoration  we  all  pay  to  a  lovable 
character.  The  perennial  fountain  of  goodness 
and  sweetness  in  Raphael's  soul,  which  "  won  for 
him  the  favor  of  the  great,"  as  Giovio  said,  while 
living,  has  won  for  him  the  homage  of  the  world, 
now  that  he  is  dead.  He  had  by  nature  a  sunny, 
kindly  disposition :  he  had  what  every  person 
living  may  have,  and  would  do  well  to  culti- 
vate :  a  spirit  that  did  not  find  fault,  lips  that 
spoke  no  censure  of  anybody,  but  praise  where 
praise  was  possible,  and  such  self-control  that  not 
an  enemy  was  ever  made  by  his  temper  or  his  lack 
of  consideration  for  others.  He  was  enthusiastic, 
but  he  had  the  self-poise  of  a  great  nature.  True, 
his  life  was  short.  &.s  Grimm  says,  "  Four  single 
statements  exhaust  the  story  of  his  life :  he  lived, 
he  loved,  he  worked,  he  died  young."  He  helped 
everybody,  -and  what  more  is  there  in  life  than 
this? 


TITIAN. 


TITIAN. 


"  TF  I  were  required,"  says  Mrs.  Jameson,  "  to 
J-  sum  up  in  two  great  names  whatever  the  art  of 
painting  had  contemplated  and  achieved  of  highest 
and  best,  I  would  invoke  Raphael  and  Titian. 
The  former  as  the  most  perfect  example  of  all  that 
has  been  accomplished  in  the  expression  of  thought 
through  the  medium  of  form  ;  the  latter,  of  all  that 
has  been  accomplished  in  the  expression  of  life 
through  the  medium  of  color.  Hence  it  is  that, 
while  both  have  given  us  mind,  and  both  have  given 
us  beauty,  Mind  is  ever  the  characteristic  of 
Raphael  —  Beauty,  that  of  Titian. 

"  Considered  under  this  point  of  view,  these 
wonderful  men  remain  to  us  as  representatives  of 
the  two  great  departments  of  art.  All  who  went 
before  them,  and  all  who  follow  after  them,  may 
be  ranged  under  the  banners  of  one  or  the  other  of 
these  great  kings  and  leaders.  Under  the  banners 
of  Raphael  appear  the  majestic  thinkers  in  art, 
the  Florentine  and  Roman  painters  of  the  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  centuries ;  and  Albert  Dtirer,  in 
Germany.  Ranged  on  the  side  of  Titian  appear 
the  Venetian,  the  Lombard,  the  Spanish,  and  Flem- 


156  TITIAN. 

ish  masters.  When  a  school  of  art  arose  which 
aimed  at  uniting  the  characteristics  of  both,  what 
was  the  result  ?  A  something  second-hand  and 
neutral  —  the  school  of  the  Academicians  and  the 
mannerists,  a  crowd  of  painters  who  neither  felt 
what  they  saw,  nor  saw  what  they  felt ;  who  trusted 
neither  to  the  God  within  them,  nor  the  nature 
around  them ;  and  who  ended  by  giving  us  Form 
without  Soul —  Beauty  without  Life." 

Kuskin  says,  "  When  Titian  or  Tintoret  look  at 
a  human  being,  they  see  at  a  glance  the  whole  of 
its  nature,  outside  and  in  ;  all  that  it  has  of  form, 
of  color,  of  passion,  or  of  thought ;  saintliness  and 
loveliness ;  fleshly  power  and  spiritual  power ; 
grace,  or  strength,  or  softness,  or  whatsoever  other 
quality,  those  men  will  see  to  the  full,  and  so 
paint  that,  when  narrower  people  come  to  look  at 
what  they  have  done,  every  one  may,  if  he  chooses, 
find  his  own  special  pleasxire  in  the  work.  The 
sensualist  will  find  sensuality  in  Titian;  the 
thinker  will  find  thought ;  the  saint,  sanctity  ;  the 
colorist,  color ;  the  anatomist,  form  ;  and  yet  the 
picture  will  never  be  a  popular  one  in  the  full 
sense,  for  none  of  these  narrower  people  will  find 
their  special  taste  so  alone  consulted  as  that  the 
qualities  which  would  insure  their  gratification 
shall  be  sifted  or  separated  from  others  ;  they  are 
checked  by  the  presence  of  the  other  qualities, 
which  insure  the  gratification  of  other  men.  .  .  . 
Only  there  is  a  strange  undercurrent  of  everlasting 
murmur  about  the  name  of  Titian,  which  means 


TITIAN.  157 

the  deep  consent  of  all  great  men  that  he  is  greater 
than  they." 

Strong  praise  indeed !  —  "  the  deep  consent  of  all 
great  men  that  he  is  greater  than  they  ; "  —  strong 
praise  for  the  tireless  worker,  of  whom  Ludovico 
Dolce  wrote,  who  knew  him  personally,  that  "he 
was  most  modest ;  that  he  never  spoke  reproach- 
fully of  other  painters ;  that,  in  his  discourse,  he 
was  ever  ready  to  give  honor  where  honor  was  due  ; 
that  he  was,  moreover,  an  eloquent  speaker,  having 
an  excellent  wit  and  a  perfect  judgment  in  all 
things ;  of  a  most  sweet  and  gentle  nature,  affable 
and  most  courteous  in  manner ;  so  that  whoever 
once  conversed  with  him  could  not  choose  but  love 
him  thenceforth  forever."  He  was  remarkably  calm 
and  self-poised  through  life,  saying  that  a  painter 
should  never  be  agitated.  And  yet  he  was  a  man 
of  strong  feelings  and  tender  affections. 

Titian,  the  lover  of  the  beaiitiful,  was  born  at 
Arsenale,  in  the  Valley  of  Cadore,  in  the  heart  of 
the  Venetian  Alps,  in  the  year  1477.  His  father, 
Gregorio  Vecelli,  was  a  brave  soldier,  a  member  of 
the  Council  of  Cadore,  inspector  of  mines,  superin- 
tendent of  the  castle,  and,  though  probably  limited 
in  means,  was  universally  esteemed  for  wisdom  and 
uprightness.  Of  the  mother,  Lucia,  little  is 
known,  save  that  she  bore  to  Gregorio  four  chil- 
dren, Caterina,  Francesco,  Orsa,  and  Titian. 

In  this  Alpine  country,  with  its  waterfalls  and 
its  rushing  river,  Piave,  with  its  mountain  wild- 
flowers,  its  jagged  rocks  and  nestling  cottages,  the 


158  TITIAN. 

boy  Titian  grew  to  be  passionately  fond  of  nature ; 
to  idolize  beauty  of  form  and  face,  and  to  revel  in 
color.  The  clouds,  the  sky,  the  cliffs,  the  green- 
sward, were  a  constant  delight.  In  after  years  he 
put  all  these  changing  scenes  -upon  canvas,  becom- 
ing the  most  famous  idealist  as  well  as  the  "great- 
est landscape-painter  of  the  Venetian  school." 

The  story  is  told,  though  it  has  been  denied  by 
some  authorities,  that^before  he  was  ten  years  of 
age  he  had  painted,  on  the  walls  of  his  home  at 
Cadore,  with  the  juice  of  flowers,  a  Madonna,  the 
Child  standing  on  her  knee,  while  an  angel  kneels 
at  her  feet.  The  father  and  relatives  were  greatly 
surprised  and  pleased,  and  the  lad  was  taken  to  Ven- 
ice, seventy  miles  from  Cadore,  and  placed  with  an 
uncle,  so  that  he  might  study  under  the  best  artists. 

His  first  teacher  seems  to  have  been  Sebastian 
Zuccato,  the  leader  of  the  guild  of  mosaic-work- 
ers. He  was  soon,  however,  drawn  to  the  studio 
of  Gentile  Bellini,  an  artist  seventy  years  old, 
noted  for  his  knowledge  of  perspective  and  skill 
in  composition.  He  had  travelled  much,  and  had 
gathered  into  his  home  pictures  and  mosaics  of 
great  value :  the  head  of  Plato,  a  statue  of  Venus 
by  Praxiteles,  and  other  renowned  works.  What 
an  influence  has  such  a  home  on  a  susceptible  boy 
of  eleven  or  twelve  years  of  age  !  Gentile  was  a 
man  of  tender  heart  as  well  as  of  refined  taste. 
Asked  to  paint  portraits  of  the  sultan  and  sultana, 
the  aged  artist  went  to  Constantinople  in  1479  and 
presented  the  ruler  with  a  picture  of  the  decapita- 


TITIAN.  159 

tion  of  St.  John.     The  sultan  criticised  the  work,       * 
and,  to  show  the  painter  the  truth  of  the  criticism, 
had  the  head  of  a  slave  struck  off  in  his  presence, 
whereupon  the  artist,   sick  at  heart,   returned  at 
once  to  Venice. 

The  young  Cadorine  studied  carefully  the  minute 
drawings  of  Gentile  Bellini,  but,  with  an  original- 
ity peculiar  to  himself,  sketched  boldly  and 
rapidly.  The  master  was  displeased,  and  the  boy 
sought  the  studio  of  his  brother,  Giovanni  Bellini, 
an  artist  with  more  brilliant  style,  and  broader 
contrasts  in  light  and  shade. 

Here  he  met  Giorgioue  as  a  fellow-pupil,  who 
soon  became  his  warm  friend.  This  man  studied 
the  works  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  and  became  dis- 
tinguished for  boldness  of  design  and  richness  of 
color.  Titian  was  his  assistant  and  devoted  ad- 
mirer. 

Another  person  who  greatly  influencd  the  early 
life  of  Titian  was  Palma  Vecchio  of  Bergamo, 
eminent  for  his  portraits  of  women.  Perhaps 
there  was  a  special  bond  between  these  two  men, 
for  it  is  asserted  that  Titian  loved  Palma's  beauti- 
ful daughter,  Violante.  Palma  had  three  daugh- 
ters, whom  he  frequently  painted ;  one  picture,  now 
at  Dresden,  shows  Violante  in  the  centre  between 
her  two  sisters ;  another,  St.  Barbara  in  the  church 
of  Santa  Maria  Formosa  in  Venice,  Palma's  master- 
piece, and  still  another,  Violante,  at  Vienna,  with  a 
violet  in  her  bosom. 

Titian's  earliest  works  were  a  fresco  of  Hercules, 


160  TITIAN. 

on  the  front  of  the  Morosini  Palace ;  a  Madonna, 
now  in  the  Vienna  Belvedere,  which  shows  genuine 
feeling  with  careful  finish ;  and  portraits  of  his 
parents,  now  lost.  His  first  important  work  was 
painted  about  the  year  1500,  when  he  was  twenty- 
three,  "  Sacred  and  Profane  Love/'  now  in  the 
Borghese  Palace  at  Rome. 

Eaton  says  of  this,  "Out  of  Venice  there  is 
nothing  of  Titian's  to  compare  to  his  '  Sacred  and 
Profane  Love.'  .  .  .  Description  can  give  no  idea 
of  the  consummate  beauty  of  this  composition.  It 
has  all  Titian's  matchless  warmth  of  coloring,  with 
a  correctness  of  design  no  other  painter  of  the 
Venetian  school  ever  attained.  It  is  nature,  but 
not  individual  nature ;  it  is  ideal  beauty  in  all  its 
perfection,  and  breathing  life  in  all  its  truth,  that 
we  behold." 

Crowe  and  Cavalcaselle,  who  have  studied  the 
more  than  one  thousand  pictures  to  which  the  name 
of  Titian  is  attached,  say  in  their  life  of  the  great 
painter,  "  The  scene  is  laid  in  a  pleasure  ground 
surrounded  by  landscape,  swathed  in  the  balmy 
atmosphere  of  an  autumnal  evening.  A  warm 
glow  is  shed  over  hill,  dale,  and  shore,  and  streaks 
of  gray  cloud  alternate  with  bands  of  light  in  a 
sunset  sky.  To  the  right,  in  the  distance,  a  church 
on  an  island,  and  a  clump  of  cottages  on  a  bend  of 
land,  bathed  by  the  waters  of  the  sea ;  and  two 
horsemen  on  a  road  watch  their  hounds  coursing  a 
hare.  To  the  left  a  block  of  buildings  and  a 
tower  half  illumined  by  a  ray  of  sun  crown  the 


TITIAN.  161 

hillside,  where  a  knight  with  his  lance  rides  to 
meet  a  knot  of  villagers. 

"Nearer  to  the  foreground,  and  at  measured  in- 
tervals, saplings  throw  their  branches  lightly  on 
the  sky,  which,  nearer  still,  is  intercepted  in  the 
centre  of  the  space  by  a  group  of  rich-leaved  trees, 
rising  fan-like  behind  the  marble  trough  of  an 
antique  fountain.  Enchanting  lines  of  hill  and 
plain,  here  in  shadow,  there  in  light,  lead  us  to  the 
foreground,  where  the  women  sit  on  a  lawn  watered 
by  the  stream  that  issues  from  the  fountain,  and 
rich  in  weeds  that  shoot  forked  leaves  and  spikes 
out  of  the  grass. 

"  Artless  (Sacred)  Love,  on  one  side,  leans,  half- 
sitting,  on  the  ledge  of  the  trough,  a  crystal  dish 
at  her  side,  symbolizing  her  thoughts.  Her  naked 
figure,  slightly  veiled  by  a  length  of  muslin,  is 
relieved  upon  a  silken  cloth  hanging  across  the  arm, 
and  helping  to  display  a  form  of  faultless  shape 
and  complexion.  The  left  hand  holds  aloft  the 
vase  and  emblematic  incense  of  love ;  the  right, 
resting  on  the  ledge,  supports  the  frame  as  the 
maiden  turns,  with  happy  earnestness,  to  gaze  at 
her  companion.  She  neither  knows  nor  cares  to 
heed  that  Cupid  is  leaning  over  the  hinder  ledge  of 
the  fountain  and  plashing  in  the  water.  .  .  .  Not 
without  coquetry,  or  taste  for  sparkling  color,  the 
chestnut  hair  of  the  naked  maiden  is  twisted  in  a 
rose-colored  veil ;  the  cloth  at  her  loins  is  of  that 
golden  white  which  sets  off  so  well  the  still  more 
golden  whiteness  of  her  skin.  The  red  silk  falling 


162  TITIAN. 

from  her  arm,  and  partly  waving  in  the  air,  is  of 
that  crimson  tone  which  takes  such  wonderful  car- 
minated  changes  in  the  modulations  of  its  surface, 
and  brings  out  by  its  breaks  the  more  uniform 
pearl  of  the  flesh." 

To  this  figure  of  Sacred  Love,  into  which  the 
young  painter  evidently  put  his  heart,  he  gave  the 
beautiful  and  half-pensive  face  of  Violante.  Did 
he  intend  thus  to  immortalize  her,  while  he 
immortalized  himself  ?  Very  likely. 

"  Sated  (Profane)  Love  sits  to  the  left,  her  back 
resolutely  turned  towards  Cupid,  her  face  deter- 
mined, haughty,  but  serene  ;  her  charms  veiled  in 
splendid  dress,  her  very  hands  concealed  in  gloves. 
...  A  plucked  rose  fades  unheeded  by  the  sated 
one's  side,  and  a  lute  lies  silent  under  her  elbow. 
.  .  .  She  seems  so  grand  in  her  lawns  and  silks  ;  her 
bosom  is  fringed  with  such  delicate  cambric  ;  her 
waist  and  skirt,  so  finely  draped  in  satin  of  gray 
reflexes ;  the  red  girdle,  with  its  jewelled  clasp,  the 
rich  armlets,  the  bunch  of  roses  in  her  gloved  hand, 
all  harmonize  so  perfectly." 

For  the  next  six  or  seven  years,  while  Venice  was 
engaged  in  wars  with  the  French  and  the  Turks, 
little  is  known  of  the  young  Titian,  save  that  he 
must  have  been  growing  in  fame,  as  he  painted  the 
picture  of  the  infamous  Caesar  Borgia,  the  son  of 
Pope  Alexander  VI.,  Jacopo  da  Pesaro,  Bishop  of 
Paphos,  who  had  charge  of  the  Papal  squadron 
against  the  Turks,  and  other  paintings,  now  lost. 
The  picture  of  Pesaro  was  owned  by  Charles  I.  of 


TITIAN.  163 

England.  In  1825  William  I.,  King  of  the  Nether- 
lands, presented  it  to  the  city  of  Antwerp,  where 
it  is  highly  prized. 

In  1507  the  State  of  Venice  engaged  Giorgione  to 
fresco  the  new  Fondaco  de'  Tedeschi,  a  large  pub- 
lic structure  for  the  use  of  foreign  merchants, 
which  had  two  halls,  eighty  rooms,  and  twenty-six 
warehouses.  A  portion  of  this  work  was  trans- 
ferred to  Titian.  Above  the  portal  in  the  southern 
face  of  the  building,  Titian  painted  a  "  Judith," 
the  figure  of  a  woman  seated  on  the  edge  of  a  stone 
plinth,  in  front  of  a  stately  edifice.  In  her  right 
hand  she  waves  a  sword,  while  with  her  left  foot 
she  tramples  on  a  lifeless  head.  Two  other  grand 
frescos  were  painted  by  him,  all  now  despoiled  by 
the  northern  or  "  Tramontana  "  winds. 

Says  one  writer,  "  Whilst  Giorgione  showed  a 
fervid  and  original  spirit,  and  opened  up  a  new 
path,  over  which  he  shed  a  light  that  was  to  guide 
posterity,  Titian  exhibited  in  his  creations  a  grander 
but  more  equable  genius,  leaning  at  first,  indeed, 
on  Giorgione's  example,  but  expanding,  soon  after, 
with  such  force  and  rapidity  as  to  place  him  in 
advance  of  his  rival,  on  an  eminence  which  no  later 
craftsman  was  able  to  climb.  Titian  was  character- 
ized by  this,  that  he  painted  flesh  in  which  the 
blood  appeared  to  mantle,  whilst  the  art  of  the 
painter  was  merged  in  the  power  of  a  creator. 

"  He  imagined  forms  of  grander  proportions,  of 
more  sunny  impast,  of  more  harmonious  hues,  than 
his  competitors.  With  incomparable  skill  he  gave 


164  TITIAN. 

tenderness  to  flesh,  by  transitions  of  half-tone  and 
broken  contrasted  colors.  He  moderated  the  fire 
of  Giorgione,  whose  strength  lay  in  resolute  action, 
fanciful  movement,  and  a  mysterious  artifice  in 
disposing  shadows  contrasting  darkly  with  hot  red 
lights,  blended,  strengthened,  or  blurred  so  as  to 
produce  the  semblance  of  exuberant  life." 

It  is  said  by  some  writers  that  Giorgione  never 
forgave  Titian  for  excelling  him  in  the  frescos  of 
the  Fondaco  ;  but,  however  this  may  be,  when  the 
noted  artist  and  poet  died,  soon  after,  at  the  age  of 
thirty-four,  Titian  completed  all  his  unfinished 
pictures.  Giorgione  loved  tenderly  a  girl  who  de- 
serted him  through  the  influence  of  Morto  da  Fel- 
tri,  an  intimate  friend,  who  lived  under  his  roof. 
The  latter  was  killed  in  the  battle  of  Zara  in  1519, 
after  his  friend  Giorgione  had  died  of  a  broken 
heart  at  the  loss  of  his  beloved. 

Between  1508  and  1511  Titian  painted  several 
Madonnas,  one  in  the  Belvedere  at  Vienna,  one  in 
Florence,  one  in  the  Louvre,  and  the  beautiful 
"  Madonna  and  St.  Bridget "  now  at  Madrid. 

"  St.  Bridget  stands  with  a  basin  of  flowers  in  her 
hand,  in  front  of  the  infant  Saviour,  who  bends  out 
of  the  Virgin's  arms  to  seize  the  offering,  yet  turns 
his  face  to  his  mother,  as  if  inquiring  shall  he  take 
it  or  not.  Against  the  sky  and  white  cloud  of  the 
distance,  the  form  of  St.  Bridget  alone  is  relieved. 
The  Virgin  and  the  saint  in  armor  to  the  left  stand 
out  in  front  of  hangings  of  that  gorgeous  green 
which  seems  peculiar  in  its  brightness  to  the  Vene- 


TITIAN.  165 

tians.  With  ease  in  action  and  movement,  a 
charming  expression  is  combined.  The  juicy  tints 
and  glossy  handling  are  those  of  Titian's  Palmesque 
period;  and  St.  Bridget  is  the  same  lovely  girl 
whose  features  Palma  painted  with  equal  fondness 
and  skill  in  the  panel  called  Violante,  at  the  Belve- 
dere of  Vienna.  .  .  .  Titian  shows  much  greater 
fertility  of  resource  in  the  handling  of  flesh  than 
Palma,  being  much  more  clever  and  subtle  in  har- 
monizing light  with  half-tint  by  tender  and  cool 
transitions  of  gray  crossed  with  red,  and  much 
more  effective  in  breaking  up  shadow  with  contrast- 
ing touches  of  livid  tone,  yet  fusing  and  blending 
all  into  a  polished  surface,  fresh  as  of  yesterday, 
and  of  almost  spotless  purity,  by  the  use  of  the 
clearest  and  finest  glazings  that  it  is  possible  to 
imagine." 

Titian  was  now  thirty -four,  with  probably  the  same 
love  for  Violante  in  his  heart,  but  still  poor,  and 
struggling  with  untiring  industry  for  the  great  re- 
nown which  he  saw  before  him. 

At  this  time  Titian  painted  one  of  his  most 
noted  works,  thought  by  some  to  be  his  master- 
piece, "  The  Tribute  Money,"  now  in  the  museum 
at  Dresden.  It  was  painted  at  the  request  of 
Alfonso  d'Este,  Duke  of  Ferrara.  Scanelli,  who 
wrote  in  1655,  tells  this  story  concerning  the 
picture. 

•'  Titian  was  visited  on  a  certain  occasion  by  a 
company  of  German  travellers,  who  were  allowed 
to  look  at  the  pictures  which  his  studio  contained. 


166  TITIAN. 

On  being  asked  what  impression  these  works  con- 
veyed, these  gentlemen  declared  that  they  only 
knew  of  one  master  capable  of  finishing  as  they 
thought  paintings  ought  to  be  finished,  and  that 
was  Diirer ;  their  impression  being  that  Venetian 
compositions  invariably  fell  below  the  promise 
which  they  had  given  at  their  first  commencement. 

"  To  these  observations  Titian  smilingly  replied, 
that  if  he  had  thought  extreme  finish  to  be  the 
end  and  aim  of  art,  he  too  would  have  fallen  into 
the  excesses  of  Dflrer.  But,  though  long  expe- 
rience had  taught  him  to  prefer  a  broad  and  even 
track  to  a  narrow  and  intricate  path,  yet  he  would 
still  take  occasion  to  show  that  the  subtlest  detail 
might  be  compassed  without  sacrifice  of  breadth ; 
and  so  produced  the  Christ  of  the  Tribute  Money." 

Crowe  and  Cavalcaselle  say,  "  Vasari  reflects  an 
opinion  which  holds  to  this  day,  that  the  'head  of 
Christ  is  stupendous  and  miraculous.'  "  It  was  con- 
sidered by  all  the  artists  of  his  time  as  the  most 
perfect  and  best  handled  of  any  that  Titian  ever 
produced ;  but  for  us  it  has  qualities  of  a  higher 
merit  than  those  of  mere  treatment.  Single  as  the 
subject  is,  the  thought  which  it  embodies  is  very 
subtle. 

"  Christ  turns  towards  the  questioning  Pharisee, 
and  confirms  with  his  eye  the  gesture  of  his  hand, 
which  points  to  the  coin.  His  face  is  youthful,  its 
features  and  short  curly  beard  are  finely  framed 
iu  a  profusion  of  flowing  locks.  The  Pharisee  to 
the  right  stands  in  profile  before  Jesus,  holds  the 


TITIAN.  167 

coin,  and  asks  the  question.  The  contrast  is  sub- 
lime between  the  majestic  calm  and  elevation  and 
what  Inandt  calls  the  '  Godlike  beauty  '  of  Christ, 
and  the  low  cunning  and  coarse  air  of  the  Pharisee ; 
between  the  delicate  chiselling  of  the  features,  the 
soft  grave  eye  and  pure-cut  mouth  of  the  Saviour, 
and  the  sharp  aquiline  nose  or  the  crafty  glance  of 
the  crop-haired,  malignant  Hebrew.  .  .  . 

"  The  form  of  Christ  was  never  conceived  by  any 
of  the  Venetians  of  such  ideal  beauty  as  this. 
Nor  has  Titian  ever  done  better ;  and  it  is  quite 
certain  that  no  one,  Titian  himself  included,  within 
the  compass  of  the  North  Italian  schools,  repro- 
duced the  human  shape  with  more  nature  and 
truth,  and  with  greater  delicacy  of  modelling. 
Amidst  the  profusion  of  locks  that  falls  to  Christ's 
shoulders,  there  are  ringlets  of  which  we  may  count 
the  hairs,  and  some  of  these  are  so  light  that  they 
seem  to  float  in  air,  as  if  ready  to  wave  at  the 
spectator's  breath.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  bright- 
ness and  sheen  or  the  transparent  delicacy  of  the 
colors.  The  drapery  is  admirable  in  shade  and 
fold,  and  we  distinguish  with  ease  the  loose  texture 
of  the  bright  red  tunic,  and  that  of  the  fine  broad- 
cloth which  forms  the  blue  mantle.  The  most 
perfect  easel  picture  of  which  Venice  ever  witnessed 
the  production,  this  is  also  the  most  polished  work 
of  Titian." 

In  1511  Titian  was  called  to  Padua  and  Vicenza, 
where  he  executed  some  frescos,  principally  from 
the  life  of  St.  Anthony,  returning  to  Venice  in  1512. 


168  TITIAN. 

He  was  now  famous,  and  Pope  Leo  X.  naturally 
desired  to  draw  him  to  Rome,  where  Raphael  and 
Michael  Angelo  were  the  admired  of  all.  Cardinal 
Bembo,  the  secretary  of  the  pope,  and  the  friend 
of  Raphael,  importuned  Titian ;  but  the  Venetian 
loved  his  own  state  and  preferred  to  serve  her, 
sending,  May  31, 1513,  the  following  petition  to  the 
Council  of  Ten. 

"  I,  Titian  of  Cadore,  having  studied  painting 
from  childhood  upwards,  and  desirous  of  fame 
rather  than  profit,  wish  to  serve  the  Doge  and 
Signori,  rather  than  his  highness  the  pope  and 
other  Signori,  who  in  past  days,  and  even  now,  have 
urgently  asked  to  employ  me.  I  am  therefore 
anxious,  if  it  should  appear  feasible,  to  paint  in 
the  Hall  of  Council,  beginning,  if  it  please  their 
sublimity,  with  the  canvas  of  the  battle  on  the  side 
towards  the  Piazza,  which  is  so  difficult  that  no  one 
as  yet  has  had  the  courage  to  attempt  it." 

For  this  work  Titian  asked  a  moderate  compensa- 
tion, and  the  first  vacant  brokership  for  life,  all  of 
which  the  government  granted.  He  moved  into  a 
studio  in  the  old  palace  of  the  Duke  of  Milan,  at 
San  Sainuele  on  the  Grand  Canal,  where  he  re- 
mained for  sixteen  years. 

It  seemed  now  as  though  comfort  were  guaran- 
teed to  the  hard-working  artist.  But  unfortunately 
rivalries  arose.  The  Bellinis  had  worked  in  this 
Hall  of  Council  in  the  Ducal  Palace,  till  they  felt 
the  position  to  be  theirs  by  right.  After  long  dis- 
cussions, Titian  was  successful,  receiving  from  the 


TITIAN.  169 

Fondaco  an  annuity  of  one  hundred  ducats  as  a 
broker,  and  the  privilege  of  exemption  from 
certain  taxes,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  he  had  to 
paint  the  Doge's  portrait. 

Titian  was  now  painting  the  following  works  for 
Alfonso  d'Este,  Duke  of  Ferrara,  who  had  married 
the  handsome  and  celebrated  Lucretia  Borgia :  — 

The  "  Venus  Worship,"  now  in  the  Museum  of 
Madrid,  represents  the  goddess  standing  on  a  mar- 
ble pedestal,  with  two  nymphs  at  her  feet,  while 
winged  cupids  pluck  the  apples  sacred  to  Venus, 
from  the  branches  of  great  trees,  "  climbing  boughs 
like  boys,  dropping  down  from  them  like  thrushes, 
loading  baskets,  throwing  and  catching,  tumbling, 
lighting,  and  dancing." 

This  picture  was  a  favorite  study  for  artists,  and 
it  is  said  that  Domenichino  wept  when  he  heard 
that  it  had  been  carried  to  Spain. 

"  The  Three  Ages,"  now  in  the  collection  of  Lord 
Ellesmere,  has  been  frequently  copied.  A  cupid 
steps  on  two  sleeping  children :  a  beautiful  girl  sits 
near  her  lover,  "  the  holy  feeling  of  youthful  inno- 
cence and  affection  charmingly  expressed  in  both :  " 
an  old  man  contemplates  two  skulls  on  the  ground. 
"  To  the  children,  as  to  the  lovers,  the  forms  appro- 
priate to  their  age  are  given ;  and  the  whole  sub- 
ject is  treated  with  such  harmony  of  means  as  to 
create  in  its  way  the  impression  of  absolute  perfec- 
tion." 

The  "Virgin's  Kest,  near  Bethlehem,"  now  in 
the  National  Gallery,  shows  the  mother  with  the 


170  TITIAN. 

infant  Christ  on  her  lap,  taking  a  bunch  of  flowers 
from  St.  John.  The  "  Noli  Me  Tangere,"  also  in 
the  National  Gallery,  represents  Christ  with  Mary 
Magdalene  on  her  knees  before  him.  "  One  cannot 
look  without  transport  on  the  mysterious  calm  of 
this  beautiful  scene,  which  Titian  has  painted  with 
such  loving  care,  yet  with  such  clever  freedom. 
The  picture  is  like  a  leaf  out  of  Titian's  journal, 
which  tells  us  how  he  left  his  house  on  the  canals, 
and  wandered  into  the  country  beyond  the  lagoons, 
and  lingered  in  the  fresh  sweet  landscape  at  even- 
tide, and  took  nature  captive  on  a  calm  day  at 
summer's  end." 

While  painting  these  pictures,  besides  various 
portraits  of  the  poet  Ariosto,  Alfonso,  and  others, 
Titian  was  producing  what  is  generally  regarded 
as  his  masterpiece,  "The  Assumption  of  the 
Virgin,"  a  colossal  picture,  now  in  the  Academy  of 
Arts  at  Venice.  It  was  painted  for  Santa  Maria 
di  Frari,  and  was  shown  to  the  public,  March  20, 
1518,  on  St.  Bernardino's  Day,  when  all  the  public 
offices  were  closed  by  order  of  the  Senate,  and  a 
great  crowd  thronged  the  church. 

"  The  gorgeous  blue  and  red  of  Mary's  tunic 
and  mantle  stand  out  brilliant  on  the  silvery 
ether,  vaulted  into  a  dome,  supported  by  countless 
cherubs.  The  ministry  of  the  angels  about  her  is 
varied  and  eager.  One  raises  the  corner  of  the 
mantle,  some  play  the  tabor,  others  hold  the  pipes, 
or  sing  in  choir,  whilst  others  again  are  sunk  in 
wonderment,  or  point  at  the  Virgin's  majesty ;  and 


TITIAN.  171 

the  rest  fade  into  the  sky  behind,  as  the  sound  of 
bells  fades  sweetly  upon  the  ear  of  the  passing 
traveller.  .  .  .  All  but  the  head  and  arms  of  the 
Eternal  is  lost  in  the  halo  of  brightness  towards 
which  the  Virgin  is  ascending.  He  looks  down 
with  serene  welcome  in  his  face,  an  angel  on  one 
side  ready  with  a  crown  of  leaves ;  an  archangel 
swathed  in  drapery,  on  the  other,  eagerly  asking 
leave  to  deposit  on  the  Virgin's  brow  the  golden 
cincture  in  his  hands." 

Titian  was  at  once  declared  to  be  the  foremost 
painter  in  Venice,  and  was,  indeed,  the  idol  of  the 
people. 

He  now  painted  the  "  Annunciation "  for  the 
Cathedral  of  Treviso,  and  executed  several  fres- 
cos. Meantime,  the  Venetian  Government  threat- 
ened that  unless  he  went  forward  with  the  work 
in  the  Ducal  Palace  it  should  be  finished  by  others 
at  his  expense.  Pressed  on  every  hand  for  pic- 
tures, he  still  neglected  the  Palace,  and  painted 
the  brilliant  "  Bacchanal,"  now  at  Madrid,  for 
Duke  Alfonso. 

Ariadne  reposes  on  the  ground,  insensible  from 
wine,  while  a  company  of  Menads  sport  about  her 
as  Theseus  sails  away  in  the  distance.  The  most 
beautiful  Menad,  with  white  muslin  tunic  and  ruby- 
red  bodice  and  skirt,  has  the  exquisite  face  and 
form  of  Violante,  with  a  violet  or  pansy  on  her 
breast.  The  painter  was  now  over  forty,  and  still 
seemed  to  bear  Violante  on  his  heart. 

Ariadne,   daughter   of    Minos,   King   of    Crete, 


172  TITIAN. 

according  to  the  legend,  fell  in  love  with  Theseus, 
when  he  came  to  Crete  to  kill  the  Minotaur,  and 
gave  him  a  thread  by  means  of  which  he  found  his 
way  out  of  the  labyrinth.  In  gratitude  he  offered 
her  his  hand.  She  fled  with  him,  and  he  deserted 
her  on  the  Island  of  Naxos,  where  Bacchus  found 
her  and  married  her.  On  the  "  Bacchanal "  a  coup- 
let shows  its  motive,  — 

"  Who  drinks  not  over  and  over  again, 
Knows  not  what  drinking  is." 

Alfonso  d'Este  was  delighted  with  this  gay  pic- 
ture. Although  Lucretia  Borgia,  whom  he  never 
loved,  had  been  dead  but  a  few  months,  he  had 
married  a  girl  in  humble  station,  Laura  Dianti, 
whom  he  loved  tenderly,  and  who  kept  his  fickle 
heart  true  till  his  death.  She  must  have  been  a 
person  of  gentle  and  lovely  nature,  for  the  duke 
became  kinder  to  everybody,  and  more  devoted  to 
art,  literature,  and  the  refining  influences  of  life. 

It  is  believed  that  the  famous  picture  in  the 
Louvre  called  "  Titian  and  his  Mistress "  repre- 
sents Laura  and  Alfonso.  "  The  girl  stands  behind 
a  table  or  slab  of  stone,  dressing  her  hair,  whilst  a 
man  in  the  gloom  behind  her  holds,  with  his  left 
hand,  a  round  mirror,  the  reflection  of  which  he 
catches  with  a  square  mirror  in  his  right.  Into 
the  second  of  these  the  girl  gently  bends  her  head 
to  look,  eagerly  watched  by  her  lover,  as  she  twists 
a  long  skein  of  wavy  golden  hair.  Over  the  white 
and  finely  plaited  linen  that  loosely  covers  her 


TITIAN.  173 

bosom,  a  short  green  bodice  is  carelessly  thrown, 
and  a  skirt  of  the  same  stuff  is  gathered  to  the 
waist  by  a  sash  of  similar  color.  The  left  side  of 
the  girl's  head  is  already  dressed;  she  is  finishing 
the  right  side,  and  a  delightful  archness  and  sim- 
plicity beam  in  the  eyes  as  they  turn  to  catch 
the  semblance  in  the  mirror.  The  coal-black  eye 
and  brow  contrast  with  the  ruddy  hair ;  the  chis- 
elled nose  projects  in  delicate  line  from  a  face 
of  rounded,  yet  pure  contour ;  and  the  lips,  of  a 
cherry  redness,  which  Titian  alone  makes  natural, 
are  cut  with  surprising  fineness.  The  light  is  con- 
centrated with  unusual  force  upon  the  face  and 
bust  of  the  girl,  whilst  the  form  and  features  of 
the  man  are  lost  in  darkness.  We  pass  with  sur- 
prising rapidity  from  the  most  delicate  silvery 
gradations  of  sunlit  flesh  and  drapery,  to  the  mys- 
terious depths  of  an  almost  unfathomable  gloom, 
and  we  stand  before  a  modelled  balance  of  light 
and  shade  that  recalls  Da  Vinci,  entranced  by  a 
chord  of  tonic  harmony,  as  sweet  and  as  thrilling 
as  was  ever  struck  by  any  artist  of  the  Venetian 
school." 

Tired  with  his  constant  labor,  Titian  journeyed 
to  Conegliano,  at  the  foot  of  the  Venetian  Alps, 
and  painted,  at  his  leisure,  a  series  of  frescos  on 
the  front  of  the  Scuola  di  Santa  Maria  Nuova,  in 
return  for  which  he  received  the  gift  of  a  house, 
where  he  rested  ever  after,  when  on  his  way  to 
Cadore. 

In  1522  the  great  altar-piece  of  the  "  Kesurrec- 


174  TITIAN. 

tion  "  was  finished  for  Brescia,  and  placed  on  the 
high  altar  of  St.  Nazaro  e  Celso,  where  it  long  re- 
mained an  object  of  study  by  artists.  Titian 
thought  the  martyrdom  of  St.  Sebastian,  in  this 
picture,  the  best  thing  he  had  ever  done. 

Seven  years  had  now  passed  since  he  had  re- 
ceived the  commission  to  paint  the  Hall  of  the 
Great  Council.  His  property  was  to  be  taken 
from  him,  and,  alarmed  at  the  prospect,  he  worked 
vigorously  for  several  weeks  on  the  "Battle  of 
Cadore "  or  the  other  great  painting,  "  The 
Humiliation  of  the  Emperor  Barbarossa  by  Pope 
Alexander  III." 

Duke  Alfonso  was  urging  the  overworked  master 
for  a  new  picture,  the  "  Bacchus  and  Ariadne,"  now 
in  the  National  Gallery  of  England  :  a  picture  five 
feet  nine  inches  by  six  feet  three  inches.  The 
scene  is  taken  from  the  classic  poem  of  Catullus, 
when  Ariadne,  near  the  shore  of  Naxos,  flees  from 
the  presence  of  Bacchus,  whose  chariot  is  drawn 
by  leopards.  He  was  the  son  of  Jupiter  by  Semele, 
whose  death  being  caused  by  Juno,  the  god  of  the 
vintage  was  reared  by  nymphs  in  Thrace.  He 
taught  men  the  cultivation  of  the  vine  and  the  art 
of  wine-making. 

Concerning  this  picture,  Crowe  and  Cavalcaselle 
say,  "Centuries  have  robbed  the  canvas  of  its 
freshness,  and  restorers  have  done  their  best  to 
remove  its  brightest  surfaces  ;  yet  no  one  who  looks 
at  it  even  now  can  fail  to  acknowledge  the  magic 
of  its  enchantment.  Rich  harmony  of  drapery 


TITIAN.  175 

tints  and  soft  modelling,  depth  of  shade  and  warm 
flesh,  all  combine  to  produce  a  highly  colored  glow ; 
yet  in  the  midst  of  this  glow  the  form  of  Ariadne 
seems  incomparably  fair.  Nature  was  never  repro- 
duced more  kindly  or  with  greater  exuberance  than 
it  is  in  every  part  of  this  picture.  What  subtlety 
there  is  in  the  concentration  of  light  on  Ariadne, 
which  alone  gives  a  focus  to  the  composition. 
What  splendor  in  the  contrasts  of  color,  what 
wealth  and  diversity  of  scale  in  air  and  vegetation; 
how  infinite  is  the  space,  how  varied  yet  mellow 
the  gradations  of  light  and  shade. 

"There  is  not  a  single  composition  by  Titian  up 
to  this  time  in  which  the  scene  and  the  dramatis 
personce  are  more  completely  in  unison ;  and,  look- 
ing at  these  groves  and  cliffs  and  seas,  or  prying 
into  .the  rich  vegetation  of  the  foreground,  we  are 
startled  beyond  measure  to  think  that  they  were 
worked  out  piecemeal,  that  the  figures  were  put  in 
first  and  the  landscape  last.  Nor  is  it  without 
curiosity  that  we  inquire  where  Titian  got  that 
landscape,  where  he  studied  that  foreground ;  and 
we  are  forced  to  conclude  that  he  forsook  the 
workshop  on  the  Grand  Canal,  where  there  cer- 
tainly was  no  vegetation,  even  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  went  to  Ferrara,  and  there  reproduced 
with  '  botanical  fidelity '  the  iris,  the  wild  rose  and 
columbine,  which  so  exquisitely  adorn  the  very 
edge  of  the  ground  on  which  the  Satyrs  tread." 
This  picture  has  been  copied  by  Rubens,  Pou.ssiri, 
and  other  noted  artists. 


176  TITIAN. 

About  this  time  the  "  Flora "  of  the  Uffizi  was 
painted,  a  beautiful  woman  with  the  Violante  face. 
"  She  is  not  yet  dressed,  but  her  hair  is  looped  up 
with  a  silken  cord  so  as  to  shape  the  most  charm- 
ing puffs  above  the  ears,  falling  in  short  and 
plaited  waves  to  the  bosom,  leaving  bare  the 
whole  of  the  face,  the  neck,  and  throat.  No  one 
here  holds  the  mirrors,  yet  the  head  is  bent  and 
the  eyes  are  turned  as  if  some  one  stood  by  to 
catch  the  glance,  and  stretch  a  hand  for  the  flowers ; 
for  whilst  with  her  left  Flora  strives  by  an  intri- 
cate and  momentary  play  of  the  fingers,  to  keep 
fast  the  muslin  that  falls  from  her  shoulder  and 
the  damask  that  slips  from  her  form,  with  the 
other  she  presents  a  handful  of  roses,  jessamines, 
and  violets  to  an  unseen  lover.  The  white  dress, 
though  muslin-fine  and  gathered  into  minute  fold^s, 
is  beyond  measure  graceful  in  fall,  and  contrasts 
in  texture  as  well  as  harmonizes  in  color  with  the 
stiffer  and  more  cornered  stuff  of  the  rose-tinged 
cloth  which  shows  such  fine  damask  reflexes  on 
the  left  arm." 

At  this  time,  also,  Titian  painted  one  of  his  most 
exquisite  creations,  the  "  Sleeping  Venus,"  now  at 
Darmstadt,  a  graceful  nude  figure  asleep  on  a  red 
couch  strewn  with  roses,  her  arm  under  her  head. 
The  face  is  delicate,  innocent,  pensive,  and  refined 
—  still  the  face  of  Violante,  —  one  of  the  most 
beautiful,  it  seems  to  me,  which  an  artist  has  ever 
put  upon  canvas.  There  are  several  replicas  in 
England  and  elsewhere.  The  figure  is  not  more 


TITIAN.  177 

perfect,  perhaps,  than  the  Venus  of  the  Uffizi, 
painted  later  for  the  Duke  of  Urbino,  or  the  Venus 
of  Madrid ;  but  the  face  is  one  which  I  have  always 
felt  an  especial  pleasure  in  possessing. 

Taine  says  of  Titian,  "He  was  endowed  with 
that  unique  gift  of  producing  Venuses  who  are 
real  women,  and  colossi  who  are  real  men,  a  talent 
for  imitating  objects  closely  enough  to  win  us  with 
the  illusion  and  of  so  profoundly  transforming 
objects  as  to  enkindle  reverie.  He  has  at  once 
shown  in  the  same  nude  beauty  a  courtesan,  a 
patrician's  mistress,  a  listless  and  voluptuous  fisher- 
man's daughter,  and  a  powerful  ideal  figure,  the 
masculine  force  of  a  sea-goddess,  and  the  undulat- 
ing forms  of  a  queen  of  the  empyrean.  .  .  . 

"The  infinite  diversities  of  nature,  with  all  her 
inequalities,  are  open  to  him ;  the  strongest  con- 
trasts are  within  his  range ;  each  of  his  works  is 
as  rich  as  it  is  novel.  The  spectator  finds  in  him, 
as  in  Kubens,  a  complete  image  of  the  world 
around  him.  a  history,  a  psychology,  in  an  epito- 
mized form." 

The  Venus  Anadyomene,  now  in  Lord  Elles- 
mere's  collection,  rising  new-born  but  full-grown 
from  the  sea,  wringing  her  long  hair,  has  the 
features  of  a  new  model,  not  Violante,  but  the 
same  which  Titian  used  in  his  famous  Magdalen. 
This  represents  a  woman  of  about  twenty-five, 
'•  with  finely  rounded  limbs  and  well-modelled 
figure,  handsome  face,  and  streaming  golden  hair, 
and  the  white  splendor  of  the  entire  form  thrown 


178  TITIAN. 

into  bold  relief  by  a  dark  and  lonely  background. 
The  Magdalen  is  distinguishable  from  Venus  only 
by  her  upturned  face  and  tearful  eyes." 

Who  was  this  new  model  ?  Could  it  possibly 
have  been  Cecilia,  the  lady  whom  Titian  married 
about  this  time  ?  In  1525,  a  son,  Pomponio,  was 
born  to  him,  who  became  a  lifelong  sorrow,  and 
before  1530  two  other  children,  Orazio  and  Lavinia. 
The  happiness  of  this  married  life  was  of  short 
duration,  for  on  the  fifth  of  August,  1530,  after  the 
birth  of  Lavinia,  with  a  mournful  heart,  he  buried 
Cecilia.  One  of  his  friends  wrote  to  the  Avarder 
of  Mantua,  "  Our  master,  Titian,  is  quite  disconso- 
late at  the  loss  of  his  wife,  who  was  buried  yester- 
day. He  told  me  that  in  the  troubled  time  of  her 
sickness  he  was  unable  to  work  at  the  portrait  of 
the  Lady  Cornelia,  or  at  the  picture  of  the  '  Nude,' 
which  he  is  doing  for  our  most  illustrious  lord." 

Left  with  three  helpless  children,  Titian  sent  to 
Cadore  for  his  sister  Orsa,  who  came  and  cared  for 
his  household  as  long  as  she  lived.  He  had  grown 
tired  of  his  home  on  the  Grand  Canal,  and,  longing 
for  the  open  country,  hired  a  house  in  the  northern 
suburbs.  A  little  later  he  took  a  piece  of  land 
adjoining,  which  extended  to  the  shore,  and  which 
became  famous  in  after  years  for  its  beauty  as 
a  garden  and  for  the  distinguished  people  who 
gathered  there. 

Mrs.  Jameson  says,  "He  looked  over  the  wide 
canal  which  is  the  thoroughfare  between  the  city 
of  Venice  and  the  Island  of  Murano ;  in  front,  the 


TITIAN.  179 

two  smaller  islands  of  San  Cristoforo  and  San 
Michele ;  and  beyond  them  Murano,  rising  on  the 
right,  with  all  its  domes  and  campanili  like  another 
Venice.  Far  off  extended  the  level  line  of  the 
mainland,  and  in  the  distance  the  towering  chain 
of  the  Friuli  Alps,  sublime,  half  defined,  with 
jagged  snow-peaks  soaring  against  the  sky;  and 
more  to  the  left,  the  Euganean  hills,  Petrarch's 
home,  melting  like  visions,  into  golden  light. 
There,  in  the  evening,  gondolas  filled  with  ladies 
and  cavaliers,  and  resounding  with  music,  were  seen 
skimming  over  the  crimson  waves  of  the  Lagoon, 
till  the  purple  darkness  came  on  rapidly  —  not,  as 
in  the  north,  like  a  gradual  veil,  but  like  a  gemmed 
and  embroidered  curtain,  suddenly  let  down  over 
all.  This  was  the  view  from  the  garden  of  Titian ; 
so  unlike  any  other  in  the  world  that  it  never  would 
occur  to  me  to  compare  it  with  any  other.  More 
glorious  combinations  of  sea,  mountain,  shore, 
there  may  be  —  I  cannot  tell ;  like,  it  is  nothing 
that  I  have  ever  beheld  or  imagined." 

Who  does  not  recall  such  beautiful  scenes  in 
silent  Venice  !  And  yet  one  longs,  while  there,  for 
the  sound  of  the  feet  of  horses,  and  the  zest  of  a 
nineteenth-century  city ;  one  feels  as  though  life 
were  going  by  in  a  dream,  and  is  anxious  to  awake 
and  be  a  part  of  the  world's  eager,  stirring  thought. 
Gondolas  and  moonlight  evenings  delight  one  for  a 
time,  but  not  for  long ! 

Titian  was  now  fifty-four.  He  had  painted  the 
"Entombment  of  Christ,"  which. was  a  favorite 


180  TITIAN. 

with  Van  Dyck,  and  helped  to  form  his  style  —  a 
picture  four  feet  and  four  inches  by  seven  feet,  now 
in  the  Louvre ;  the  Madonna  of  San  Niccol6  di 
Frari,  now  in  the  Vatican,  which  Pordenone  is 
reported  to  have  said  was  "  not  painting,  but  flesh 
itself ; "  the  "  Madonna  di  Casa  Pesaro,"  which 
latter  especially  won  the  heartiest  praise.  St. 
Peter,  St.  Francis,  and  St.  Anthony  of  Padua 
implore  the  intercession  of  the  Virgin  in  favor  of 
the  members  of  the  Pesaro  family. 

Crowe  and  Cavalcaselle  thus  speak  of  it :  "  High 
up  on  a  spray  of  clouds  that  inwreathe  the  pillars  of 
the  temple,  two  angels  playfully  sport  with  the 
cross ;  and,  with  that  wonderful  insight  which  a 
painter  gets  who  has  studied  cloud  form  flitting 
over  Alpine  crags,  Titian  has  not  only  thrown  a 
many-toned  gradation  of  shade  on  the  vapor,  but 
shown  its  projected  shadow  on  the  pillar.  The 
light  falls  on  the  clouds,  illumines  the  sky  between 
the  pillars,  and  sheds  a  clear  glow  on  the  angels, 
casting  its  brightest  ray  on  the  Madonna  and  the 
body  of  the  infant  Christ.  .  .  .  Decompose  the 
light  or  the  shadow,  and  you  find  incredible  varieties 
of  subtlety,  which  make  the  master's  art  unfathom- 
able. Both  are  balanced  into  equal  values  with  a 
breadth  quite  admirable,  the  utmost  darks  being 
very  heavy  and  strong  without  losing  their  trans- 
parency ;  the  highest  lights  dazzling  in  brightness, 
yet  broken  and  full  of  sparkle.  Round  the  form  of 
the  infant  Christ  the  play  of  white  drapery  is  magic 
in  effect.  . 


TITIAN.  181 

"  To  the  various  harmonizing  elements  of  hue,  of 
light,  and  of  shade,  that  of  color  superadded  brings 
the  picture  to  perfection ;  its  gorgeous  tinting  so 
subtly  wrought,  and  so  wonderfully  interweaving 
with  sun  and  darkness  and  varied  textures  as  to 
resolve  itself  with  the  rest  into  a  vast  and  incom- 
prehensible whole,  which  comes  to  the  eye  an  ideal 
of  grand  and  elevated  beauty,  a  sublime  unity,  that 
shows  the  master  who  created  it  to  have  reached  a 
point  in  art  unsurpassed  till  now,  and  unattainable 
to  those  who  come  after  him." 

"  The  Martyrdom  of  St.  Peter  Martyr,"  com- 
pleted in  1529,  where  Titian  "reproduced  the 
human  form  in  its  grandest  development,"  has  been 
studied  by  generations  of  artists,  from  Benvenuto 
Cellini  and  Rubens  to  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds.  So 
valued  was  it  by  Venice  that  the  Signoria  threat- 
ened with  death  any  one  who  should  dare  to  remove 
it.  Unfortunately  it  was  destroyed  by  fire  in  1867, 
together  with  the  chapel  which  contained  it. 

The  "  Madonna  del  Coniglio,"  at  the  Louvre,  is 
also  much  valued.  "We  ask  ourselves,  indeed, 
when  looking  at  this  picture,  whether  an  artist  with 
only  fleeting  ties  could  have  created  such  a  master- 
piece ;  and  the  answer  seems  to  be  that  nature 
here  gushes  from  the  innermost  recesses  of  a  man's 
heart  who  has  begun  to  know  the  charms  of  pater- 
nity, who  has  watched  a  young  mother  and  her 
yearling  child,  and  seized  at  a  glance  those  charm- 
ing but  minute  passages  which  seldom  or  never  meet 
any  but  a  father's  eye." 


182  TITIAN. 

In  1533  a  most  fortunate  thing  happened  to 
Titian.  Charles  V.  had  come  to  Bologna,  to  receive 
the  homage  of  Italy.  The  great  emperor  was  an 
enthusiastic  lover  of  art,  had  seen  Titian's  work, 
and  desired  a  portrait  from  his  hand.  The  artist 
hastened  thither  and  painted  Charles  in  armor, 
bare-headed.  He  used  to  say  of  himself  that  he 
was  by  nature  ugly,  but  being  painted  so  often 
uglier  than  he  really  was,  he  disappointed  favorably 
many  persons,  who  expected  something  most 
unattractive. 

Another  portrait  of  him  which  Titian  painted, 
now  at  Madrid,  shows  him  in  splendid  gala  dress, 
with  red  beard,  pale  skin,  blue  eyes,  and  protruding 
lower  lip. 

The  sculptor  Lombardi  was  so  anxious  to  look 
upon  the  emperor  that  he  carried  Titian's  paint- 
box at  the  sittings,  and  slyly  made  a  relief  portrait 
of  Charles  on  a  tablet  in  wax,  which  he  slipped 
into  his  sleeve.  The  emperor  detected  him,  asked 
to  see  the  work,  praised  it,  and  had  Lombardi  put 
it  in  marble  for  him. 

Charles  was  so  pleased  with  the  portraits  by 
Titian  that  he  would  never  sit  to  any  other  artist. 
He  called  him  the  Apelles  of  his  time,  and  paid 
him  one  thousand  scudi  in  gold  for  each  portrait. 
He  created  Titian  a  Count  of  the  Lateran  Palace, 
of  the  Aulic  Council,  and  of  the  Consistory ;  with 
the  title  of  Count  Palatine,  and  all  the  advantages 
attached  to  those  dignities.  His  children  were 
thereby  raised  to  the  rank  of  Nobles  of  the 


TITIAN.  183 

Empire,  with  all  the  honors  appertaining  to  families 
with  four  generations  of  ancestors.  He  was  also 
made  a  Knight  of  the  Golden  Spur,  with  the  right 
of  entrance  to  Court. 

The  Cadorine  youth  had  reached  the  temple  of 
fame,  unaided  save  by  his  skilful  hand  and  inven- 
tive brain.  He  sat  daily  from  morning  till  night 
at  his  easel,  often  ill  from  overwork,  yet  urged  on 
by  that  undying  aspiration  which  we  call  genius. 

He  painted  the  beautiful  portrait  of  the  young 
Cardinal  Ippolito  de'  Medici,  now  in  the  Pitti 
Palace,  whom  Michael  Angelo  so  tenderly  loved, 
and  whose  untimely  death  by  poison  at  the  hand  of 
his  cup-bearer,  at  Itri,  caused  general  sorrow. 
Ippolito  sat  to  Titian  at  Bologna  "  in  the  red  cap 
and  variegated  plumes  of  a  Hungarian  chief.  His 
curved  sabre  hung  from  an  Oriental  sash  wound 
round  a  red-brown  coat  with  golden  buttons,  and 
he  wielded  with  his  right  the  mace  of  command. 
It  appeared  as  if  the  burning  sun  of  the  Danube 
valley  had  bronzed  the  features  of  the  chieftain, 
whose  skin  seemed  to  glow  with  a  tropical  heat, 
whilst  its  surface  was  smooth  and  burnished  as 
that  of  the  Bella  Gioconda."  Ippolito  urged  Titian 
to  come  to  Rome ;  Francis  I.  wished  him  to  visit 
France ;  but  Titian  loved  his  Venice  gardens  and 
his  mountain  resort  at  Cadore,  and  could  not  be 
induced  to  leave  them.  His  father,  Gregorio 
Vecelli,  had  died  in  1527,  three  years  before  the 
death  of  Cecilia,  and  Francesco,  the  dearly  loved 
artist  brother,  had  gone  to  care  for  the  Cadore 


184  TITIAN. 

home,  where  he  often  welcomed  with  enthusiastic 
admiration  his  famous  brother,  Titian. 

The  next  paintings  from  the  great  artist  were 
the  "  Rape  of  Proserpina  j "  portraits  of  the  Duke 
and  Duchess  of  Urbino,  Isabella  d'Este  Gonzaga, 
the  beautiful  Eleonora  Gonzaga,  the  twelve  Caesars 
for  Duke  Federigo  Gonzaga  of  Mantua ;  the  "  An- 
nunciation," for  which  he  received  two  thousand 
scudi  from  the  Emperor ;  "  La  B^lla  di  Titiano," 
now  in  the  Pitti,  and  the  "  Venus  "  of  the  Uffizi. 
"  The  face  of  the  '  Bella '  was  so  winning  that  it 
lurked  in  Titian's  memory,  and  passed  as  a  type 
into  numerous  canvases,  in  which  the  painter  tried 
to  realize  an  ideal  of  loveliness.  The  head  being 
seen  about  two-thirds  to  the  left,  whilst  the  eyes 
are  turned  to  the  right,  the  spectator  is  fascinated 
by  the  glance  in  whatever  direction  he  looks  at  the 
canvas.  The  eye  is  grave,  serene,  and  kindly,  the 
nose  delicate  and  beautifully  shaped,  the  mouth 
divine.  Abundant  hair  of  a  warm  auburn  waves 
along  the  temples,  leaving  a  stray  curl  to  drop  on 
the  forehead.  The  rest  is  plaited  and  twisted  into 
coils  round  a  head  of  the  most  symmetrical  shape. 
A  gold  chain  falls  over  a  throat  of  exquisite  model, 
and  the  low  dress,  with  its  braided  ornaments  and 
slashed  sleeves  alternately  tinted  in  blue  and 
white  and  purple,  is  magnificent.  One  hand,  the 
left,  is  at  rest ;  the  other  holds  a  tassel  hanging 
from  a  girdle.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  delicacy 
and  subtlety  with  which  the  flesh  and  dress  are 
painted,  the  tones  being  harmonized  and  thrown 


TITIAN.  185 

into  keeping  by  a  most  varied  use  and  application 
of  glazings  and  scumblings." 

Of  the  Uffizi  "  Venus,"  Crowe  and  Cavalcaselle 
say,  "  What  the  painter  achieves,  and  no  other 
master  of  the  age  achieves  with  equal  success,  is 
the  representation  of  a  beauteous  living  being, 
whose  fair  and  polished  skin  is  depicted  with 
enamelled  gloss,  and  yet  with  every  shade  of  mod- 
ulation which  a  delicate  flesh  comports  :  flesh  not 
marbled  or  cold,  but  sweetly  toned,  and  mantling 
with  life's  blood,  flesh  that  seems  to  heave  and 
rise  and  fall  with  every  breath.  Perfect  distribu- 
tion of  space,  a  full  and  ringing  harmony  of  tints, 
atmosphere  both  warm  and  mellow,  are  all  com- 
bined in  such  wise  as  to  bring  us  in  contact  with 
something  that  is  real ;  and  we  feel,  as  we  look  into 
the  canvas,  that  we  might  walk  into  that  apart- 
ment and  find  room  to  wander  in  the  gray  twilight 
into  which  it  is  thrown  by  the  summer  sky  that 
shows  through  the  coupled  windows." 

At  the  feet  of  Venus  a  little  dog  lies  curled  up 
on  the  couch.  In  the  Venus  of  Madrid,  she  pats 
the  back  of  a  dog,  while  her  lover  plays  an  organ 
at  the  foot  of  the  couch. 

It  is  interesting  to  learn  how  Titian  produced 
such  effects  by  his  brush.  Says  Palma  Giovine, 
"  Titian  prepared  his  pictures  with  a  solid  stratum 
of  pigment,  which  served  as  a  bed  or  fundament, 
upon  which  to  return  frequently.  Some  of  these 
preparations  were  made  with  resolute  strokes  of 
a  brush  heavily  laden  with  color,  the  half-tints 


186  TITIAN. 

struck  in  with  pure  red  earth,  the  lights  with 
white,  modelled  into  relief  by  touches  of  the  same 
brush  dipped  into  red,  black,  and  yellow.  In  this 
way  he  would  give  the  promise  of  a  figure  in  four 
strokes.  After  laying  this  foundation,  he  would 
turn  the  picture  to  the  wall,  and  leave  it  there 
perhaps  for  months,  turning  it  round  again  after  a 
time,  to  look  at  it  carefully,  and  scan  the  parts  as 
he  would  the  face  of  his  greatest  enemy. 

"  If  at  this  time  any  portion  of  it  should  appear 
to  him  to  have  been  defective,  he  would  set  to  work 
to  correct  it,  applying  remedies  as  a  surgeon  might 
apply  them,  cutting  off  excrescences  here,  super- 
abundant flesh  there,  redressing  an  arm,  adjusting 
or  setting  a  limb,  regardless  of  the  pain  which  it 
might  cause.  In  this  way  he  would  reduce  the 
whole  to  a  certain  symmetry,  put  it  aside,  and  re- 
turn again  a  third  or  more  times,  till  the  first  quin- 
tessence had  been  covered  over  with  its  padding  of 
flesh.  It  was  contrary  to  his  habit  to  finish  at  one 
painting,  and  he  used  to  say  that  a  poet  who  impro- 
vises cannot  hope  to  form  pure  verses.  But  of 
'condiments,'  in  the  shape  of  last  retouches,  he 
was  particularly  fond.  Now  and  then  he  would 
model  the  light  into  half-tint  with  a  rub  of  his 
finger,  or  with  a  touch  of  his  thumb  he  would  dab  a 
spot  of  dark  pigment  into  some  corner  to  strengthen 
it ;  or  throw  in  a  reddish  stroke  —  a  tear  of  blood, 
so  to  speak  —  to  break  the  parts  superficially.  In 
fact,  when  finishing,  he  painted  much  more  with  his 
fingers  than  with  his  brush."  Titian  used  to  say, 


TITIAN.  187 

"White,  red,  and  black,  these  are  all  the  colors  that 
a  painter  needs,  but  one  must  know  how  to  use 
them."  Titian  painted  rapidly.  One  of  his  best 
friends  said  that  "  he  could  execute  a  portrait  as 
quickly  as  another  could  scratch  an  ornament  on  a 
chest." 

In  1537  the  Council  of  Ten,  angered  at  Titian's 
delays  in  frescoing  the  ducal  palace,  gave  a  portion 
of  the  work  to  the  noted  artist  Pordenone,  took 
away  his  brokership,  and  decreed  that  he  should 
refund  his  revenues  from  that  source  for  the  past 
twenty  years.  In  dismay,  Titian  left  his  orders 
from  emperors  and  princes,  and  went  to  work  in 
the  great  halls.  Two  years  later  his  broker's 
patent  was  restored,  and,  Pordenone  having  died 
in  1538,  the  patronage  of  the  Republic  came  again 
into  his  hands. 

Titian  now  painted  the  "Angel  and  Tobit,"  of 
San  Marciliano  at  Venice,  and  the  "Presentation 
in  the  Temple,"  now  at  the  Venice  Academy,  the 
latter  "the  finest  and  most  complete  creation  of 
Venetian  art  since  the  'Peter  Martyr,'  and  the 
'  Madonna  di  Casa  Pesaro.' " 

This  picture  is  one  of  the  largest  of  the  master's 
works,  being  twenty-five  feet  long.  "Mary,  in  a 
dress  of  celestial  blue,  ascends  the  steps  of  the 
temple  in  a  halo  of  radiance.  She  pauses  on  the 
first  landing-place,  and  gathers  her  skirts  to  ascend 
to  the  second.  The  flight  is  in  profile  before  us. 
At  the  top  of  it  the  high-priest,  in  Jewish  garments, 
yellow  tunic,  blue  undercoat  and  sleeves,  and  white 


188  TITIAN. 

robe,  looks  down  at  the  girl  with  serene  and  kindly 
gravity,  a  priest  in  cardinal's  robes  at  his  side,  a 
menial  in  black  behind  him,  and  a  young  acolyte 
in  red  and  yellow  holding  the  book  of  prayer.  At 
the  bottom  there  are  people  looking  up,  some  of 
them  leaning  on  the  edge  of  the  step,  others  about 
to  ascend." 

Titian  painted  several  portraits  of  himself,  one 
now  at  Berlin,  another  at  Madrid,  still  another  in 
Florence,  and  others.  They  show  a  bold,  high  fore- 
head, finely  cut  nose,  penetrating  eyes,  and  much 
dignity  of  bearing. 

Duke  Alfonso  of  Ferrara  and  Duke  Federigo 
Gonzaga  of  Mantua,  his  noble  patrons,  had  both 
died;  but  Pope  Paul  III.  now  became  an  ardent 
admirer  of  Titian's  work,  invited  him  to  Home, 
where  he  spent  several  months  lodged  in  the  Bel- 
vedere Palace,  and  sat  to  him  for  a  portrait.  It  is 
said,  after  the  picture  of  Paul  was  finished  and  set 
to  dry  on  the  terrace  of  the  palace,  that  the  passing 
crowd  doffed  their  hats,  thinking  that  it  was  the 
living  pope. 

While  in  Rome,  Titian  painted  many  portraits  in 
the  pontiff's  family,  and  a  "Danae  receiving  the 
Golden  Rain,"  now  in  the  museum  of  Naples,  for 
Ottavio  Farnese,  grandson  of  Paul  III.,  who  was 
married  to  Margaret,  daughter  of  Emperor  Charles 
V.  Danae  was  the  daughter  of  Acrisius,  king  of 
Argos.  An  oracle  had  predicted  that  her  son  would 
one  day  kill  Acrisius ;  therefore,  to  prevent  the  ful- 
filment of  the  prophecy,  Danae  was  shut  up  in  a 


TITIAN.  189 

brazen  tower.  But  Jupiter  transformed  himself 
into  a  shower  of  gold,  and  descended  through  the 
roof  of  her  tower.  She  became  the  mother  of  Per- 
seus, and  she  and  her  son  were  put  into  a  chest  and 
cast  into  the  sea.  Jupiter  rescued  them,  and  Per- 
seus finally  killed  his  grandfather. 

Titian  was  now  sixty-eight  years  of  age,  —  grow- 
ing old,  out  never  slacking  in  energy  or  industry. 
He  had  painted  for  the  Church  of  San  Spirito 
"  Abraham's  Sacrifice  of  Isaac,"  "  The  Murder  of 
Abel,"  "  David's  Victory  over  Goliath,"  "  The  De- 
scent of  the  Holy  Spirit,"  "The  Four  Christian 
Fathers,"  and  "  The  Four  Evangelists."  "  His  fig- 
ures are  not  cast  in  the  supernatural  mould  of  those 
of  Michael  Angelo  at  the  Sistine,  they  are  not 
shaped  in  his  sculptural  way,  or  foreshortened  in 
his  preternatural  manner.  They  have  not  the  ele- 
gance of  Raphael,  nor  the  conventional  grace  of 
Correggio ;  but  they  are  built  up,  as  it  were,  of  flesh 
and  blood,  and  illumined  with  a  magic  effect  of 
light  and  shade  and  color  which  differs  from  all 
else  that  was  realized  elsewhere  by  selection,  out- 
line, and  chiaroscuro.  They  form  pictures  peculiar 
to  Titian,  and  pregnant  with  his,  and  only  his, 
grand  and  natural  originality."  The  "  Ecce  Homo," 
twelve  feet  by  eight,  in  the  gallery  of  Vienna,  was 
painted  for  Giovanni  d'  Anna,  a  wealthy  merchant. 
When  Henry  III.  passed  through  Venice  in  1574, 
he  saw  this  picture,  and  offered  eight  hundred  ducats 
for  it.  When  Sir  Henry  Wotton  was  English  envoy 
at  Venice  in  1620,  he  bought  the  painting  for  the 


190  TITIAN. 

Duke  of  Buckingham,  who  refused  thirty-five  thou- 
sand dollars  offered  for  it  by  the  Earl  of  Arundel. 

In  1546,  on  the  return  of  the  artist  from  Rome 
to  his  home,  Casa  Grande,  in  Venice,  he  painted  the 
portraits  of  his  lovely  daughter  Lavinia,  now  in 
the  Dresden  Museum,  and  in  the  Berlin  gallery. 
"  From  the  first  to  the  last  this  beautiful  piece  (in 
Dresden)  is  the  work  of  the  master,  and  there  is 
not  an  inch  of  it  in  which  his  hand  is  not  to  be 
traced.  His  is  the  brilliant  flesh,  brought  up  to  a 
rosy  carnation  by  wondrous  kneading  of  copious 
pigment ;  his  the  contours  formed  by  texture,  and 
not  defined  by  outline ;  his  again  the  mixture  of 
sharp  and  blurred  touches,  the  delicate  modelling 
in  dazzling  light,  the  soft  glazing,  cherry  lip,  and 
sparkling  eye.  Such  a  charming  vision  as  this  was 
well  fitted  to  twine  itself  round  a  father's  heart. 

"  Lavinia's  hair  is  yellow,  and  strewed  with  pearls, 
showing  a  pretty  wave,  and  irrepressible  curls  in 
stray  locks  on  the  forehead.  Ear-rings,  a  neck- 
lace of  pearls,  glitter  with  gray  reflections  on  a  skin 
incomparably  fair.  The  gauze  on  the  shoulders  is 
light  as  air,  and  contrasts  with  the  stiff  richness  of 
a  white  damask  silk  dress  and  skirt,  the  folds  of 
which  heave  and  sink  in  shallow  projections  and 
depressions,  touched  in  tender  scales  of  yellow  or 
ashen  white.  The  left  hand,  with  its  bracelet  of 
pearls,  hangs  gracefully  as  it  tucks  up  the  train  of 
the  gown,  whilst  the  right  is  raised  no  higher  than 
the  waist,  to  wave  the  stiff,  plaited  leaf  of  a  pal- 
metto fan."  . 


TITIAN.  191 

Lavinia,  at  Berlin,  "  is  dressed  in  yellowish  flow- 
ered silk,  with  slashed  sleeves,  a  chiselled  girdle 
round  her  waist,  and  a  white  veil  hanging  from  her 
shoulders.  Seen  in  profile,  she  raises  with  both 
hands,  to  the  level  of  her  forehead,  a  silver  dish 
piled  with  fruit  and  flowers.  Her  head  is  thrown 
back,  and  turned  so  as  to  allow  three-quarters  of  it 
to  be  seen,  as  she  looks  from  the  corners  of  her 
eyes  at  the  spectator.  Auburn  hair  is  carefully 
brushed  off  the  temples,  and  confined  by  a  jewelled 
diadem,  and  the  neck  is  set  off  with  a  string  of 
pearls." 

The  Titian  home  had  joys  and  sorrows  in  it  like 
other  homes.  Pomponio,  the  eldest  child,  though 
a  priest,  was  dissolute  and  a  spendthrift,  constantly 
incurring  debts  which  his  devoted  father  paid  to 
mitigate  the  disgrace.  Orazio,  a  noble  son,  had 
become  an  artist,  his  father's  assistant  and  con- 
fidant. He  had  married  and  brought  his  young 
wife  to  Casa  Grande.  Lavinia,  a  beauty,  the  only 
daughter,  was  about  to  be  married  to  Cornelio 
Sarcinella  of  Serravalle,  receiving  from  her  father 
a  dowry  of  fourteen  hundred  ducats,  a  regal  sum 
for  a  painter. 

In  January  of  1548,  Titian,  now  past  seventy, 
was  summoned  to  Augsburg,  where  Charles  V.  had 
convened  the  Diet  of  the  Empire.  He  painted  the 
portrait  of  Charles  on  the  field  of  Muhlberg  "  in 
burnished  armor- inlaid  with  gold,  his  arms  and 
legs  in  chain  mail,  his  hands  gauntleted,  a  morion 
with  a  red  plume,  but  without  a  visor,  on  his  head. 


192  TITIAN. 

The  red  scarf  with  gold  stripes  —  cognizance  of  the 
House  of  Burgundy  —  hung  across  his  shoulders, 
and  he  brandished  with  his  right  hand  a  sharp  and 
pointed  spear.  The  chestnut  steed,  half  hid  in 
striped  housings,  had  a  head-piece  of  steel  topped 
by  a  red  feather  similar  to  that  of  its  master  " 

Titian  also  painted,  while  at  Augsburg,  King 
Ferdinand,  the  brother  of  Charles,  Queen  Mary  of 
Hungary,  "  Prometheus,"  "  Sisyphus,"  "  Ixion," 
and  "  Tantalus "  at  her  request,  besides  many 
other  pictures.  Charles  so  honored  Titian  that  once 
when  the  artist  dropped  his  brush  the  emperor 
picked  it  up  and  handed  it  to  him,  saying  that 
"  Titian  was  worthy  of  being  served  by  Caesar." 

On  a  second  visit  to  Augsburg  Titian  painted  a 
portrait  of  Philip  II.  of  Spain,  the  son  of  Charles. 
This  was  sent  to  Queen  Mary  of  England,  when 
Philip  was  her  suitor,  and  quite  won  her  heart, 
presumably  more  than  the  man  himself  when  he 
afterwards  became  her  husband.  When  Titian 
parted  from  his  patron,  Charles  gave  him  a  Spanish 
pension  of  five  hundred  scudi.  He  returned  to 
Venice  "rich  as  a  prince  instead  of  poor  as  a 
painter." 

Philip  II.  was  as  much  a  patron  of  art  as  his 
father,  and  was  constantly  soliciting  paintings  from 
Titian.  It  is  best,  probably,  that  most  of  us  are 
worked  to  our  utmost  capacity,  for  work  rarely  kills 
people ;  worry  frequently  destroys  both  body  and 
brain. 

For  Philip  he  painted  a  "  St.  Margaret,"  now  in 


TITIAN.  193 

the  museum  at  Madrid ;  a  "  Danae,"  where  an  old 
woman  sits  beside  the  couch  and  gathers  Jupiter's 
golden  shower  in  her  apron ;  a  "  Perseus  and  An- 
dromeda," the  princess  bound  to  a  rock,  and  Per- 
seus saving  her ;  and  a  "  Vemis  and  Adonis,"  now 
at  Madrid.  For  the  enfeebled  Emperor  Charles  he 
painted  "The  Grieving  Virgin,"  now  in  the  Madrid 
Museum,  which  represents  the  mother  lamenting 
over  the  sufferings  of  the  Saviour,  and  the  "Trin- 
ity," now  at  Madrid,  showing  the  Virgin  interceding 
before  the  Father  and  Son  for  the  imperial  family, 
—  a  picture  upon  which  the  emperor  used  to  gaze 
with  intense  feeling  when  he  had  retired  to  die  in 
the  Convent  of  Yuste.  Thither  he  carried  nine  of 
Titian's  paintings  for  his  consolation.  He  died  in 
1558,  with  his  eyes  resting  lovingly  upon  a  picture 
of  the  emperor  painted  by  Titian,  and  upon  "The 
Trinity."  "  Christ  appearing  to  the  Magdalen " 
was  sent  to  Queen  Mary  of  Hungary. 

Titian  was  now  seventy-nine  years  of  age,  hon- 
ored and  loved  by  many  countries.  While  his  life 
had  been  one  of  almost  unceasing  labor,  he  had 
found  time  to  receive  at  Casa  Grande,  poets  and 
artists,  dukes  and  kings,  at  his  delightful  garden- 
parties.  Henry  III.  of  France  came  to  see  him, 
and  received  as  a  gift  any  pictures  in  the  studio  of 
which  he  asked  the  price.  When  Cardinal  Gran- 
velle  and  Pacheco  came  to  dine  at  Casa  Grande, 
Titian  flung  a  purse  to  his  steward,  and  bade  him 
prepare  a  feast,  since  "all  the  world  was  dining 
with  him." 


194  TITIAN. 

Titian  attached  to  himself  a  few  most  devoted 
friends :  Aretino,  a  writer,  who  had  many  faults, 
but  must  have  had  some  virtues  to  have  been  loved 
by  Titian  for  thirty  years  j  Sansovino,  an  architect ; 
Speroni,  a  philosopher,  and  a  few  others  who  met 
frequently  for  cultured  conversation  and  good-fel- 
lowship at  Casa  Grande.  It  is  said  by  historians 
that  at  some  of  these  garden  parties  the  still  beau- 
tiful Violante  was  to  be  seen  among  the  distin- 
guished guests.  Had  she  been  married  to  another, 
all  these  years  ?  or  was  the  old  affection  renewed 
in  these  latter  days  ? 

In  1556  Aretino  died,  and  Titian  deeply  lamented 
the  man  who  had  been  an  almost  inseparable  com- 
panion ;  three  years  later  his  beloved  brother, 
Francesco,  died  at  Cadore,  and  two  years  after  this 
his  beautiful  daughter  Lavinia,  leaving  six  little 
children. 

Still  the  man  past  eighty  painted  on :  "  The 
Martyrdom  of  St.  Lawrence,"  now  in  the  Jesuits' 
Church  at  Venice,  and  "  Christ  Crowned  with 
Thorns,"  now  in  the  Louvre,  where,  "with  unde- 
niable originality,  he  almost  attained  to  a  grandeur 
of  composition  and  bold  creativeness  equal  to  those 
of  Buonarotti,  whilst  he  added  to  his  creations 
that  which  was  essentially  his  own  —  the  magic 
play  of  tints  and  lights  and  shadows  which  mark 
the  true  Venetian  craftsman." 

At  eighty -two  he  painted  for  Philip  II.  "Diana 
and  Calisto,"  "  Diana  and  Actaeon,"  and  "  The 
Entombment  of  Christ."  The  Dianas  are  now  in 


TITIAN.  195 

the  Bridgewater  collection  at  London,  for  which 
they  were  purchased  for  twelve  thousand  five  hun- 
dred dollars. 

"  Titian,"  says  Crowe,  "  was  never  more  thor- 
oughly master  of  the  secrets  of  the  human  frame- 
work than  now  that  he  was  aged.  Never  did  he 
less  require  the  model.  What  his  mind  suggested 
issued  from  his  hand  as  Minerva  issued  from  the 
brain  of  Jove.  His  power  was  the  outcome  of 
years  of  experience,  which  made  every  stroke  of 
his  brush  both  sure  and  telling.  ...  But  the  field 
of  the  earlier  time,  take  it  all  in  all,  is  sweeter  and 
of  better  savor  than  that  of  the  later  period. 
Rich,  exuberant,  and  bright  the  works  of  the  mas- 
ter always  were  ;  but  there  is  something  mysterious 
and  unfathomable  in  the  brightness  and  sweetness 
of  his  prime  which  far  exceeds  in  charm  the  clever- 
ness of  his  old  age." 

With  loving  care  he  painted  Irene  of  Spilimberg, 
who  died  at  twenty,  and  whose  fame  in  classic 
learning,  in  music,  painting,  and  poetry,  Avas  cele- 
brated in  sonnets  and  prose  at  her  death.  She  was 
a  pupil  of  Titian,  a  fit  representative  of  an  age 
which  produced  among  learned  men  such  women 
as  Vittoria  Colonna  and  Veronica  Gambara.  Irene 
is  painted  "almost  at  full  length  and  large  as  life, 
in  a  portico,  from  which  a  view  is  seen  of  a  land- 
scape, with  a  shepherd  tending  his  flock,  and  a 
unicorn  to  indicate  the  lady's  maiden  condition. 
Her  head  is  turned  to  the  left,  showing  auburn 
hair  tied  with  a  string  of  pearls.  Round  her 


196  TITIAN. 

throat  is  a  necklace  of  the  same.  Her  waist  is 
bound  with  a  chain  girdle,  and  over  her  bodice  of 
red  stuff  a  jacket  of  red  damask  silk  is  embroid- 
ered with  gold,  and  fringed  at  the  neck  with  a  high 
standing  muslin  collar.  A  band  hanging  from  the 
shoulders  and  passing  beneath  one  arm  is  held  in 
the  right  hand,  whilst  the  left  is  made  to  grasp  a 
laurel  crown,  and  '  Si  fata  tulissent '  is  engraved 
on  the  plinth  of  a  pillar." 

The  "Epiphany,"  now  in  Madrid,  was  sent  to 
Philip  II.,  in  1560 ;  a  "  Magdalen,"  now  in  the 
Hermitage,  in  1561 ;  "  Christ  in  the  Garden," 
"  Europa  and  the  Bull,"  and  "  Jupiter  and  An- 
tiope,"  in  1562.  Titian  wrote  to  Philip,  "  I  had 
determined  to  take  a  rest  for  those  years  of  my 
old  age  which  it  may  please  the  majesty  of  God  to 
grant  me ;  still  ...  I  shall  devote  all  that  is  left 
of  my  life  to  doing  reverence  to  your  Catholic 
Majesty  with  new  pictures." 

"  Europa,"  says  Sweetser,  "  is  a  lovely  and  scan- 
tily clad  maiden  sitting  on  the  back  of  a  flower- 
garlanded  white  bull,  who  is  swimming  proudly 
through  the  green  sea,  throwing  a  line  of  foaming 
surge  before  his  breast.  In  the  air  are  flying 
Cupids,  and  the  nymphs  on  the  distant  shore  be- 
wail the  loss  of  their  companion." 

"  Jupiter  and  Antiope,"  now  in  the  Louvre, 
formerly  called  the  "Venus  of  Pardo,"  is  very 
celebrated.  "  Though  injured  by  fire,  travels, 
cleaning,  and  restoring,"  says  Crowe,  "  the  master- 
piece still  exhibits  Titian  in  possession  of  all  the 


TITIAN.  197 

energy  of  his  youth,  and  leads  us  back  involun- 
tarily to  the  days  when  he  composed  the  Bac- 
chanals. The  same  beauties  of  arrangement,  form, 
light,  and  shade,  and  some  of  the  earlier  charms  of 
color,  are  here  united  to  a  new  scale  of  effective- 
ness due  to  experience  and  a  magic  readiness  of 
hand.  Fifty  years  of  practice  were  required  to 
bring  Titian  to  this  mastery.  Distribution,  move- 
ment, outline,  modelling,  atmosphere  and  distance, 
are  all  perfect." 

The  following  year,  1563,  Titian  sent  to  Philip 
"  The  Last  Supper,"  with  thirteen  life-sized  figures, 
upon  which  he  had  worked  for  six  years.  When  it 
was  carried  to  the  Escurial,  in  spite  of  the  pro- 
tests of  the  painter  Navarrete,  the  monks  cut  off  a 
large  piece  of  the  upper  part  of  the  canvas,  to 
make  it  the  size  of  the  wall  of  the  refectory  ! 

In  1565  he  painted  "  The  Transfiguration,"  in  the 
San  Salvadore  at  Venice,  the  "  Annunciation  "  for 
the  same  church ;  "  St.  James  of  Compostella," 
in  the  Church  of  San  Leo,  and  the  "Cupid 
and  Venus  "  of  the  Borghese  Palace,  the  Queen 
of  Love  and  two  Graces  teaching  Cupid  his  voca- 
tion. 

"Venus  is  seated  in  front  of  a  gorgeous  red- 
brown  drapery ;  her  head  is  crowned  with  a 
diadem,  and  her  luxuriant  hair  falls  in  heavy  locks 
on  her  neck.  Her  arms  are  bare,  but  her  tunic  is 
bound  with  a  sash,  which  meets  in  a  cross  at  her 
bosom  and  winds  away  under  the  arms,  whilst  a 
flap  of  a  blue  mantle  crosses  the  knees.  With  both 


198  TITIAN. 

hands  she  is  binding  the  eyes  of  Eros  leaning  on 
her  lap,  whilst  she  turns  to  listen  to  the  whisper- 
ing of  another  Eros  resting  on  her  shoulder.  A 
girl  with  naked  throat  and  arm  carries  Cupid's 
quiver,  whilst  a  second  holds  his  bow.  Behind  the 
group  a  sky  overcast  with  pearly  clouds  lowers 
over  a  landscape  of  hills.  .  .  .  Light  plays  upon 
every  part,"  says  Crowe,  "creating,  as  it  falls,  a 
due  projection  of  shadow,  producing  all  the  delica- 
cies of  broken  tone  and  a  clear  silvery  surface  full 
of  sparkle,  recalling  those  masterpieces  of  Paolo 
Veronese,  in  which  the  gradations  are  all  in  the 
cinerine  as  opposed  to  the  golden  key." 

In  1566,  the  aged  artist,  now  verging  on  ninety, 
heretofore  exempt  from  taxation,  Avas  obliged  to 
give  a  list  of  his  property.  He  owned  several 
houses,  pieces  of  land,  sawmills,  and  the  like,  and 
has  been  blamed  because  he  did  not  state  the  full 
value  of  his  possessions. 

Vasari,  who  visited  him  at  this  time,  writes,  — 
"  Titian  has  enjoyed  health  and  happiness  un- 
equalled, and  has  never  received  from  heaven  any- 
thing but  favor  and  felicity.  His  house  has  been 
visited  by  all  the  princes,  men  of  letters,  and  gen- 
tlemen who  ever  come  to  Venice.  Besides  being 
excellent  in  art,  he  is  pleasant  company,  of  fine 
deportment  and  agreeable  manners.  .  .  .  Titian, 
having  decorated  Venice,  and,  indeed,  Italy  and 
other  parts  of  the  world,  with  admirable  pictures, 
deserves  to  be  loved  and  studied  by  artists,  as  one 
who  has  done  and  is  still  doing  works  deserving 


TITIAN.  199 

of  praise,  which  will  last  as  long  as  the  memory  of 
illustrious  men." 

When  he  was  ninety-one  he  sent  to  Philip  II.  a 
"  Venus,"  the  "  Martyrdom  of  St.  Lawrence,"  a 
large  "  Tarquin  and  Lucretia,"  and  "  Philip  Pre- 
senting his  Son  to  an  Angel,"  now  in  the  Madrid 
Museum.  He  also  painted  for  himself  "  Christ 
Crowned  with  Thorns,"  a  powerful  work,  now  in 
Munich,  which  Rubens,  Rembrandt,  and  Van  Dyck 
carefully  studied  as  a  model.  Tintoretto  hung  it 
later  in  his  atelier,  to  show  what  a  painting  ought 
to  be. 

His  "Adam  and  Eve,"  now  at  Madrid,  which 
Rubens  greatly  admired  and  copied,  was  painted 
at  this  time. 

In  1576,  when  Titian  was  ninety-nine,  he  began 
his  last  picture,  the  "  Christ  of  Pity,"  for  the 
Franciscans  of  the  Frari,  with  whom  he  had  bar- 
gained for  a  grave  in  their  chapel.  The  Saviour 
rests  in  death  on  the  lap  of  the  Virgin. 

"We  may  suppose,"  says  Donald  G.  Mitchell, 
"  that  a  vision  of  Lavinia — long  gone  out  of  his 
household  —  of  Cecilia,  still  longer  gone  —  of 
Violante,  a  memory  of  his  young  days  —  may  have 
flitted  on  his  mind  as  he  traced  the  last  womanly 
face  he  was  to  paint." 

"On  marble  plinths  at  the  sides  of  the  niche 
are  statues  of  Moses  and  the  Hellespontic  Sibyl, 
and  on  a  scutcheon  at  the  Sibyl's  feet  we  see  the 
arms  of  Titian,  a  set  square  sable  on  a  field  argent, 
beneath  the  double  eagle  on  a  field  or.  A  small 


200  TITIAN. 

tablet  leaning  against  the  scutcheon  contains  the 
defaced  portraits  of  Titian  and  his  son  Orazio, 
kneeling  before  a  diminutive  group  of  the  '  Christ 
of  Pity.'  ...  It  is  truly  surprising,"  says  Crowe, 
'•  that  a  man  so  far  advanced  in  years  should  have 
had  the  power  to  put  together  a  composition  so 
perfect  in  line,  so  elevated  in  thought,  or  so  tragic 
in  expression.  .  .  .  We  see  the  traces  of  a  brush 
manipulated  by  one  whose  hand  never  grew  weary, 
and  never  learned  to  tremble.  ...  In  the  group  of 
the  Virgin  and  Christ  —  a  group  full  of  the 
deepest  and  truest  feeling  —  there  lies  a  grandeur 
comparable  in  one  sense  with  that  which  strikes 
us  in  the  'Pieta'  of  Michael  Angelo.  For  the  sub- 
lime conventionalism  by  which  Buonarotti  carries 
us  into  a  preternatural  atmosphere,  Titian  substi- 
tutes a  depth  of  passion  almost  equally  sublime, 
and  the  more  real  as  it  is  enhanced  by  color." 

Titian  did  not  live  to  complete  this  work,  which 
was  done  by  his  pupil,  Palma  Giovine,  who  placed 
conspicuously  upon  it  this  touching  inscription : 
"That  which  Titian  left  unfinished,  Palma  rever- 
ently completed,  and  dedicated  the  work  to  God." 

Age  did  not  spoil  the  skill  of  the  master. 
Aretino  said,  on  looking  at  a  portrait  of  a  daughter 
of  the  rich  Strozzio,  "  If  I  were  a  painter,  I  should 
die  of  despair.  .  .  .  But  certain  it  is  that  Titian's 
pencil  has  waited  on  Titian's  old  age  to  perform 
its  miracles." 

Tullia  said,  "  I  hold  Titian  to  be  not  a  painter  — 
his  creations  not  art,  but  his  works  to  be  miracles, 


TITIAN.  201 

and  I  think  that  his  pigments  must  be  composed  of 
that  wonderful  herb  which  made  Glaucus  a  god 
when  he  partook  of  it;  since  his  portraits  make 
upon  me  the  impression  of  something  divine,  and, 
as  heaven  is  the  paradise  of  the  soul,  so  God  has 
transfused  into  Titian's  colors  the  paradise  of  our 
bodies." 

In  the  summer  of  this  year,  1576,  Venice  was 
stricken  by  a  plague  which  destroyed  fifty  thou- 
sand people  out  of  one  hundred  and  ninety  thou- 
sand ;  more  than  a  quarter  of  the  whole  population. 
There  was  a  general  panic,  the  sick  were  left  to 
die  unattended,  and  a  law  was  passed  that  no 
victims  of  the  scourge  should  be  buried  in  the 
churches. 

As  the  plague  swept  on  it  carried  off  Orazio,  the 
son  of  Titian,  and  then  the  idol  of  Venice,  Titian 
himself.  He  died  suddenly  August  27,  1576.  The 
law  of  burial  was  quickly  set  aside  by  the  supreme 
authorities,  and,  despite  the  fear  of  contagion,  the 
canons  of  St.  Mark  bore  his  body  in  solemn  proces- 
sion to  his  grave  in  the  Church  of  the  Frari.  In 
1852,  nearly  three  centuries  later,  the  Emperor  of 
Austria  erected  a  magnificent  mausoleum  over  his 
tomb.  It  is  a  vast  canopy  covering  a  statue  of 
Titian,  seated,  with  one  hand  resting  on  the  Book 
of  Art,  while  the  other  lifts  the  veil  of  Nature. 
Surrounding  him  are  figures  representing  paint- 
ing, wood-carving,  sculpture,  and  architecture,  while 
on  the  wall  behind  him  are  bas-reliefs  of  three  of 
his  greatest  works,  the  "  Assumption,"  the 


202  TITIAN. 

"  Martyrdom  of  St.  Lawrence,"  and  the  "  Martyr- 
dom of  St.  Peter."  Two  angels  bear  the  simple 
inscription,  — 

"  Titiano  Ferdinandus  I.  MDCCCLII." 
Wonderful  old  man  !  self-made,  a  poet  by  nature, 
a  marvel  of  industry,  working  to  the  very  last  on 
his  beloved  paintings,  rich,  tender  to  his  family, 
true  in  his  friendships.  "  The  greatest  master  of 
color  whom  the  world  has  known." 


MURILLO. 


MURILLO. 


IN  the  picturesque  city  of  Seville,  "  the  glory  of 
the  Spanish  realms,"  the  greatest  painter  of 
Spain,  Bartolome  Esteban  Murillo,  was  born,  prob- 
ably on  the  last  day  of  the  year  1617.  He  was 
baptized  on  New  Year's  Day,  1618,  in  the  Church  of 
La  Magdalena,  destroyed  in  1810  by  the  French 
troops  under  Marshal  Soult. 

His  father,  Gaspar  Esteban,  was  a  mechanic, 
renting  a  modest  house  which  belonged  to  a  con- 
vent, and  keeping  it  in  repair  for  the  use  of  it. 
His  mother,  Maria  Perez,  seems  to  have  been  well 
connected,  as  her  brother,  Juan  de  Costillo,  was 
one  of  the  leaders  of  art  in  Seville.  It  is  said  that 
the  family  were  once  wealthy  and  distinguished, 
but  now  they  were  very  poor. 

The  boy,  Bartolome,  was  consecrated  to  the 
church,  with  the  fond  hope  of  his  mother  that  he 
would  become  a  priest.  However,  he  soon  ex- 
hibited such  artistic  talent  that  this  project  was 
abandoned.  One  day  when  the  mother  went  to 
Church,  leaving  the  child  at  home,  he  amused  him- 
self by  taking  a  sacred  picture,  "  Jesus  and  the 
Lamb,"  and  painting  his  own  hat  on  the  Infant 
Saviour'^  head,  and  changing  the  lamb  into  a  dog. 


204  MURILLO. 

Probably  the  reverent  mother  was  shocked,  but 
she  thereby  gained  a  knowledge  of  the  genius  of 
her  only  son.  In  school,  the  boy  used  to  make 
sketches  on  the  margins  of  his  books  and  on  the 
walls. 

Before  he  was  eleven  years  old,  both  father  and 
mother  died,  leaving  him  to  the  care  of  a  surgeon, 
Juan  Agustiii  Lagares,  who  had  married  his  aunt, 
Dona  Anna  Murillo.  Probably  from  this  family 
name  the  boy  derived  his  own.  A  little  sister, 
Teresa,  was  also  left  an  orphan. 

He  was  soon  apprenticed  to  his  uncle,  Juan  del 
Castillo,  who  taught  him  carefully  all  the  details 
of  his  art,  —  correct  drawing,  how  to  prepare  can- 
vas, mix  colors,  and  study  patiently.  The  lad  was 
very  industrious,  eager  to  learn,  extremely  gentle 
and  amiable,  and  soon  attached  himself  to  both 
teacher  and  pupils. 

From  this  it  is  easy  to  judge  that  he  had  had  a 
lovely  mother,  one  who  encouraged,  who  preserved 
a  sweet  nature  in  her  son  because  sweet  herself. 
How  often  have  I  seen  a  parent  lose  the  confidence 
of  a  child  by  too  often  reproving,  by  over-criticism, 
by  disparagement !  Praise  seldom  harms  anybody. 
We  usually  receive  and  give  too  little  commenda- 
tion all  our  lives. 

One  of  my  most  precious  memories  is  the  fact 
that  my  widowed  mother  made  it  her  life-rule  not 
to  find  fault  with  her  two  children.  She  loved  us 
into  obedience.  She  told  us  her  wishes  and  her 
hopes  for  us,  and  the  smile  with  which  she  spoke 


MURILLO.  205 

lingers  in  my  heart  like  an  exquisite  picture.  Long 
ago  I  learned  that  no  home  eve-r  had  too  much  love 
in  it. 

For  nine  years  the  Spanish  lad  worked  in  his 
uncle's  studio,  studying  nature  as  well  as  art,  as 
shown  in  his  inimitable  "  Beggar  Boys  "  and  other 
dwellers  in  the  streets  of  Seville.  When  he  was 
twenty,  he  painted  two  Madonnas,  "The  Virgin 
with  St.  Francis,"  for  the  Convent  of  Regina  An- 
gelorum,  and  the  "Virgin  del  Rosario  with  San 
Domingo,"  for  the  Church  of  St.  Thomas. 

It  was  natural  that  the  young  artist,  loving  the 
Catholic  faith,  should  paint  as  one  of  his  first  pic- 
tures the  "  Story  of  the  Rosary."  Mrs.  Jameson, 
in  her  "  Legends  of  the  Monastic  Orders,"  thus 
gives  the  history  of  St.  Dominick  :  "  His  father 
was  of  the  illustrious  family  of  Guzman.  His 
mother,  Joanna  d' Aza,  was  also  of  noble  birth.  .  .  . 
Such  was  his  early  predilection  for  a  life  of  penance 
that  when  he  was  only  six  or  seven  years  old  he 
would  get  out  of  his  bed  to  lie  on  the  cold  earth. 
His  parents  sent  him  to  study  theology  in  the 
university  of  Valencia,  and  he  assumed  the  habit 
of  a  canon  of  St.  Augustine  at  a  very  early  age. 

"  Many  stories  are  related  of  his  youthful  piety, 
his  self-inflicted  austerities,  and  his  charity.  One 
day  he  met  a  poor  woman  weeping  bitterly,  and 
when  he  inquired  the  cause  she  told  him  that  her 
only  brother,  her  sole  stay  and  support  in  the 
world,  had  been  carried  into  captivity  by  the 
Moors.  Dominick  could  not  ransom  her  brother ; 


206  MUJRILLO. 

he  had  given  away  all  his  money,  and  even  sold  his 
books,  to  relieve  the,  poor ;  but  he  offered  all  he 
could,  —  he  offered  up  himself  to  be  exchanged  as 
a  slave  in  place  of  her  brother.  The  woman, 
astonished  at  such  a  proposal,  fell  upon  her  knees 
before  him.  She  refused  his  offer,  but  she  spread 
the  fame  of  the  young  priest  far  and  wide.  .  .  . 

"He  united  with  himself  several  ecclesiastics, 
who  went  about  barefoot  in  the  habit  of  penitents, 
exhorting  the  people  to  conform  to  the  Church. 
The  institution  of  the  Order  of  St.  Dominick 
sprang  out  of  this  association  of  preachers,  but  it 
was  not  united  under  an  especial  rule,  nor  confirmed, 
till  some  years  later,  by  Pope  Honorius,  in  1216. 

"It  was  during  his  sojourn  in  Languedbc  that 
St.  Dominick  instituted  the  Rosary.  The  use  of 
a  chaplet  of  beads,  as  a  memento  of  the  number  of 
prayers  recited,  is  of  Eastern  origin,  and  dates  from 
the  time  of  the  Egyptian  Anchorites.  Beads  were 
also  used  by  the  Benedictines,  and  are  to  this  day 
in  use  among  the  Mohammedan  devotees.  Domi- 
nick invented  a  novel  arrangement  of  the  chaplet, 
and  dedicated  it  to  the  honor  and  glory  of  the 
Blessed  Virgin,  for  whom  he  entertained  a  most 
especial  veneration.  A  complete  rosary  consists 
of  fifteen  large  and  one  hundred  and  fifty  small 
beads ;  the  former  representing  the  number  of  Pater- 
nosters, the  latter  the  number  of  Ave  Marias.  .  .  . 
The  rosary  was  received  Avith  the  utmost  enthu- 
siasm, and  by  this  single  expedient  Dominick  did 
more  to  excite  the  devotion  of  the  lower  orders, 


MUEILLO.  207 

especially  of  the  women,  and  made  more  converts, 
than  by  all  his  orthodoxy,  learning,  arguments, 
and  eloquence. 

"  St.  Dominick,  in  the  excess  of  his  charity  and 
devotion,  was  accustomed,  while  preaching  in 
Languedoc,  to  scourge  himself  three  times  a  day,  — 
once  for  his  own  sins  ;  once  for  the  sins  of  others  ; 
and  once  for  the  benefit  of  souls  in  purgatory." 
He  preached  in  all  the  principal  cities  of  Europe, 
and  died  at  Bologna  in  1221. 

In  1640,  when  Murillo  was  twenty-two,  the  Cas- 
tilli  home  was  broken  up,  the  uncle  Juan  going  to 
Cadiz  to  reside.  Without  fame  and  poor,  the  youth 
was  thrown  upon  his  own  resources.  There  were 
many  artists  in  the  city  of  Seville,  and  Murillo, 
shy  and  retiring,  could  not  expect  much  patronage. 
He  decided  to  go  to  the  Feria,  a  weekly  market, 
held  in  front  of  the  Church  of  All  Saints,  and 
there,  in  the  midst  of  stalls  where  eatables,  old 
clothes,  and  other  wares  were  sold,  he  set  up  his 
open-air  studio,  and  worked  among  the  gypsies  and 
the  muleteers. 

Rough,  showy  pictures  were  painted  to  order  and 
sold  to  those  who  frequented  the  market-place. 
For  two  long  years  he  lived  among  this  humble 
class,  earning  probably  but  a  scanty  subsistence. 
Here,  doubtless,  he  learned  to  paint  flower-girls 
and  squalid  beggars.  "  There  was  no  contempt," 
says  Sweetser,  "  in  Murillo's  feelings  towards  these 
children  of  nature  ;  and  his  sentiments  seemed  to 
partake  almost  of  a  fraternal  sympathy  for  them. 


208  MUBILLO. 

No  small  portion  of  his  popularity  among  the 
lower  classes  arose  from  the  knowledge  that  he  was 
their  poet  and  court  painter,  who  understood  and 
did  not  calumniate  them.  Velasquez  had  chosen  to 
paint  superb  dukes  and  cardinals,  and  found  his 
supporters  in  a  handful  of  supercilious  grandees  ; 
but  Murillo  illustrated  the  lives  of  the  poorest 
classes  on  Spanish  soil,  and  was  the  idol  of  the 
masses. '  With  what  splendor  of  color  and  mastery 
of  design  did  he  thus  illuminate  the  annals  of  the 
poor !  Coming  forth  from  some  dim  chancel  or 
palace-hall  in  which  he  had  been  working  on  a  majes- 
tic Madonna-picture,  he  would  sketch  in,  with  the 
brush  still  loaded  with  the  colors  of  celestial  glory, 
the  lineaments  of  the  beggar  crouching  by  the  wall 
or  the  gypsy  calmly  reposing  in  the  black  shadow 
of  the  archway.  Such  versatility  had  never  before 
been  seen  west  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  com- 
manded the  admiration  of  his  countrymen. 

"  We  do  not  find  in  his  pictures  the  beggar  of 
Britain  and  America,  cold,  lowering,  gloomy,  and 
formidable  ;  but  the  laughing  child  of  the  sunlight, 
full  of  joy  and  content,  preferring  to  bask  rather 
than  to  work,  yet  always  fed  somehow,  and 
abundantly  ;  crop-haired,  brown-footed,  clad  in  in- 
coherent rags,  but  bright-eyed,  given  to  much 
joviality,  and  with  an  affluence  of  white  teeth, 
often  shown  in  merry  moods  ;  not  so  respectable 
as  the  staid  burghers  of  Nuremberg  and  Antwerp, 
but  far  more  picturesque  and  perhaps  quite  as 
happy." 


MURILLO.  209 

But  for  Murillo's  life  of  poverty  he  could  not 
have  had  this  sympathy  with  the  poor.  Doubtless 
every  experience  is  given  us  with  a  purpose,  that 
either  through  the  brush  or  the  pen,  or  by  word  or 
deed,  we  may  the  better  do  our  part  for  the  eleva- 
tion of  mankind. 

In  1642,  Murillo  had  a  new  inspiration.  A 
fellow-pupil  in  Castillo's  school,  Pedro  de  Moya, 
after  joining  the  Spanish  army  and  campaigning 
in  Flanders,  had  spent  six  months  in  London  under 
Van  Dyck.  Now  he  came  back  to  Seville  aglow 
with  his  delights  in  travel  and  the  wonders  of  the 
Flemish  painters. 

Murillo  was  fired  with  ambition.  He  too  would 
see  famous  painters  and  renowned  cities,  and  be- 
come as  great  as  his  young  friend  Moya.  But 
how?  He  had  no  money  and  no  influential 
friends.  He  would  make  the  effort.  He  might 
stay  forever  at  the  Feria,  and  never  be  heard  of 
beyond  Seville. 

He  bought  a  piece  of  linen,  cut  it  into  pieces  of 
various  sizes,  and,  in  some  obscure  room,  painted 
upon  them  saints,  flowers,  fruit,  and  landscapes. 
Then  he  sallied  forth  to  find  purchasers.  One 
wonders  whether  the  young  man  did  not  sometimes 
become  discouraged  in  these  years  of  toil;  if  he 
did  not  sometimes  look  at  the  houses  of  the 
grandees  and  sigh  because  he  was  not  rich  or  be- 
cause he  was  homeless  and  unknown  ? 

He  sold  most  of  his  pictures  to  a  ship-owner,  by 
whom  they  were  sent  to  the  West  Indies  and  other 


210  MURILLO. 

Catholic  portions  of  America.  Then  he  started  on 
foot  over  the  Sierras,  —  a  long  and  tedious  journey 
to  Madrid.  In  the  Spanish  capital  he  could  find 
the  works  of  art  which  he  wished  to  study. 

He  had  no  money  nor  friends  when  he  arrived 
in  the  great  city,  but  he  had  courage.  He  had 
learned  early  in  life  a  most  valuable  lesson,  —  to 
depend  on  himself.  To  whom  should  he  go  ? 
Velasquez,  formerly  of  Seville,  was  at  the  height 
of  his  fame,  the  favorite  of  the  king,  the  friend  of 
the  wealthy  and  the  distinguished.  Murillo  deter- 
mined to  seek  the  great  artist  in  his  own  home ;  at 
least  he  could  only  be  refused  admittance. 

Velasquez  kindly  received  the  young  man,  who 
told  him  how  he  had  come  on  foot  over  the  moun- 
tains to  study.  There  was  no  jealousy  in  the  heart 
of  the  painter,  no  fear  of  rivalry.  He  was  pleased 
with  the  modesty,  frankness,  and  aspiration  of  the 
youth,  and,  strange  to  say,  took  him  into  his  own 
home  to  reside.  What  a  contrast  to  painting  in 
the  Feria,  and  living  in  a  garret ! 

Murillo  at  once  began  to  study  in  the  royal 
galleries  where  Philip  II.  and  his  father  Charles  V. 
had  gathered  their  Titians,  their  Kubenses,  and  their 
Van  Dycks.  For  three  years,  through  the  kindness 
of  Velasquez,  he  met  the  leading  Spanish  artists 
and  the  prominent  people  of  the  court.  The  king 
admired  his  work,  and  greatly  encouraged  him. 
Murillo  was  fortunate, — yes;  but  Fortune  did  not 
seek  him,  he  sought  her  !  Ambition  and  action 
made  him  successful. 


MURILLO.  211 

Early  in  1645,  Murillo  returned  to  Seville. 
Velasquez  offered  to  give  him  letters  of  introduc- 
tion to  eminent  artists  in  Rome,  but  he  preferred 
to  go  back  to  his  native  city.  Probably  he  longed 
for  the  old  Cathedral,  with  La  Giralda,  the  Alcazar, 
the  Moorish  palaces,  and  the  Guadalquivir. 

The  Alcazar,  says  Hare,  in  his  "Wanderings  in 
Spain,"  begun  in  1181,  was  in  great  part  rebuilt  by 
Pedro  the  Cruel,  1353-64.  "The  history  of  this 
strange  monarch  gives  the  Alcazar  its  chief  interest. 
Hither  he  fled  with  his  mother  as  a  child  from  his 
father,  Alonzo  XI.,  and  his  mistress,  Leonora  de 
Guzman.  They  were  protected  by  the  minister, 
Albuquerque,  at  whose  house  he  met  and  loved 
Maria  de  Padilla,  a  Castilian  beauty  of  noble  birth, 
whom  he  secretly  married.  Albuquerque  was  furi- 
ous, and,  aided  by  the  queen-mother,  forced  him 
into  a  political  marriage  with  the  French  princess, 
Blanche  de  Bourbon.  He  met  her  at  Valladolid ; 
but  three  days  after  his  nuptials  fled  from  the  wife 
he  disliked  to  the  one  he  loved,  who  ever  after  held 
royal  court  at  Seville,  while  Queen  Blanche,  —  a 
sort  of  Spanish  Mary  Stuart,  —  after  being  cruelly 
persecuted  and  imprisoned  for  years,  was  finally 
put  to  death  at  Medina- Sidonia. 

"  In  this  Alcazar,  Pedro  received  the  Bed  King 
of  Granada,  with  a  promise  of  safe-conduct,  and 
then  murdered  him  for  the  sake  of  his  jewels,  one 
of  which  —  a  large  ruby  —  he  gave  to  the  Black 
Prince  after  Navarete,  and  which  is  '  the  fair  ruby, 
great  like  a  rachet-ball,'  which  Elizabeth  showed 


212  MURILLO. 

to  the  ambassador  of  Mary  of  Scotland,  and  now 
adorns  the  royal  crown  of  England.  .  .  . 

"  It  was  in  the  Alcazar,  also,  that  Pedro  murdered 
his  illegitimate  brother,  the  master  of  Santiago, 
who  had  caused  him  much  trouble  by  a  rebellion. 
Maria  de  Padilla  knew  his  coming  fate,  but  did  not 
dare  to  tell  him,  though  from  the  beautiful  ajimez 
window  over  the  gate  she  watched  for  his  arrival, 
and  tried  to  warn  him  by  her  tears.  Six  years  after, 
this  murder  was  avenged  by  Henry  of  Trastamare, 
the  brother  of  the  slain,  who  stabbed  Pedro  to  the 
heart.  But  Maria  de  Padilla  was  already  dead,  and 
buried  with  queens  in  the  royal  chapel,  when  Pedro 
publicly  acknowledged  her  as  his  lawful  wife,  and 
the  marriage  received  the  sanction  of  the  Spanish 
Church.  .  .  . 

"  Within  the  Alcazar  all  is  still  fresh  and  bril- 
liant with  light  and  color.  It 'is  like  a  scene  from 
the  '  Arabian  Nights,'  or  the  wonderful  creation  of 
a  kaleidoscope.  .  .  .  The  Hall  of  Ambassadors  is 
perfectly  glorious  in  its  delicate  lace-like  ornaments 
and  the  rich  color  of  its  exquisite  azulejos." 

"The  cathedral,"  says  Hare,  "stands  on  a  high 
platform,  girdled  with  pillars,  partly  brought  from. 
Italica  and  partly  relics  of  the  mosques,  of  which 
two  existed  on  this  site.  The  last,  built  by  the 
Emir  Yusuf  in  1184,  was  pulled  down  in  1401, 
when  the  cathedral  was  begun,  only  the  Giralda, 
the  Court  of  Oranges,  and  some  of  the  outer  walls 
being  preserved.  The  chapter,  when  convened  for- 
the  building  of  the  cathedral,  determined,  like 


MURILLO.  213 

religious  Titans,  to  build  'one  of  such  size  and 
beauty  that  coming  ages  should  proclaim  them 
mad  for  having  undertaken  it.'  .  .  . 

"Far  above  houses  and  palaces,  far  above  the 
huge  cathedral  itself,  soars  the  beautiful  Giralda, 
its  color  a  pale  pink,  incrusted  all  over  with  deli- 
cate Moorish  ornament,  so  high  that  its  detail  is 
quite  lost  as  you  gaze  upward ;  so  large  that  you 
may  easily  ride  on  horseback  to  the  summit,  up 
the  broad  roadway  in  the  interior.  .  .  . 

"In  the  interior  everything  is  vast,  down  to  the 
Paschal  candle,  placed  in  a  candlestick  twenty -five 
feet  high,  and  weighing  twenty-five  hundred  pounds, 
of  wax,  while  the  expenditure  of  the  chapter  may 
be  estimated  by  the  fact  that  eighteen  thousand 
seven  hundred  and  fifty  litres  of  wine  are  consumed 
annually  in  the  sacrament.  Of  the  ninety-three 
stained  windows  many  are  old  and  splendid.  Their 
light  is  undimmed  by  curtains,  for  there  is  an 
Andalusian  proverb  that  the  ray  of  the  sun  has  no 
power  to  injure  within  the  bounds  in  which  the 
voice  of  prayer  can  be  heard.  In  the  centre  of 
the  nave,  near  the  west  door,  surrounded  by  sculp- 
tured caravelas,  the  primitive  ships  by  which  the 
New  World  was  discovered,  is  the  tomb  of  Ferdi- 
nand Columbus,  son  of  the  great  navigator  (who 
himself  rests  in  Havanna),  inscribed,  — 
"  '  A  CASTILLA  Y  A  LEON 

MUXDO  NUEVO  DIG  COLON.' 

At  the  opposite  end  of  the  church  is    the   royal 
chapel,  where  St.  Ferdinand,  who  was  canonized  in 


214  MURILLO. 

1627,  'because  he  carried  fagots  with  his  own 
hands  for  the  burning  of  heretics,'  rests  beneath 
the  altar,  in  a  silver  sarcophagus.  Here  also  are 
his  Queen,  Beatrix,  his  son  Alonzo  el  Sabio,  father 
of  our  Queen  Eleanor,  and  Maria  de  Padilla,  the 
beautiful  Morganatic  wife  of  Pedro  the  Cruel.  .  .  . 

"  Many  of  the  services  in  this  church  reach  a 
degree  of  splendor  which  is  only  equalled  by  those 
of  St.  Peter's ;  and  the  two  organs,  whose  gigantic 
pipes  have  been  compared  to  the  columns  of  Fin- 
gal's  Cave,  peal  forth  magnificently.  But  one 
ceremony,  at  least,  is  far  more  fantastic  than  any- 
thing at  Rome." 

Frances  Elliot,  in  her  "  Diary  of  an  Idle  Woman 
in  Spain,"  thus  describes  this  remarkable  ceremony  : 
"To  the  left,  within  the  bars,  I  am  conscious  of 
the  presence  of  a  band  of  stringed  instruments,  — 
not  only  violins  and  counter-bass,  but  flutes,  flageo- 
lets, and  hautboys,  even  a  serpent,  as  they  call  a 
quaint  instrument  associated  with  my  earliest  years, 
forthwith  all  beginning  to  play  in  a  most  ancient 
and  most  homely  way,  for  all  the  world  like  a 
simple  village  choir,  bringing  a  twang  qf  damp, 
mouldy,  country  churches  to  my  mind,  sunny  Eng- 
lish afternoons,  and  odors  of  lavender  and  southern- 
wood. 

"  As  they  play  —  these  skilled  musicians  —  a 
sound  of  youthful  voices  comes  gathering  in,  fresh, 
shrill,  and  childlike,  rising  and  falling  to  the 
rhythm. 

"  All  at  once  the  music  grows  strangely  passion- 


MURILLO.  215 

ate,  the  voices  and  the  stringed  instruments  seem 
to  heave  and  sigh  in  tender  accents,  long-drawn 
notes  and  sobs  wail  out  melodious  cries  for  mercy 
and  invocations  for  pardon,  growing  louder  and 
intenser  each  moment. 

"Then,  I  know  not  how,  for  the  great  darkness 
gathers  round  even  to  the  gates  of  the  altar,  a 
band  of  boys,  the  owners  of  the  voices,  appears  as 
in  a  vision  hi  the  open  space  between  the  benches 
on  which  the  chapter  sits,  and,  gliding  down  the 
altar  steps,  move  in  a  measure  fitting  in  softly  with 
the  music. 

"  How  or  when  they  begin  to  dance,  singing  as 
if  to  the  involuntary  movement  of  their  feet,  I  know 
not ;  at  first  '  high-disposedly,'  their  bodies  sway- 
ing to  and  fro  to  the  murmur  of  the  band,  which 
never  leaves  off  playing  a  single  instant,  in  the 
most  heavenly  way.  Then,  as  the  music  quickens 
and  castanets  click  out,  the  boys  grow  animated, 
and  move  swifter  to  and  fro,  raising  their  arms  in 
curves  and  graceful  interlacing  rounds.  Still  faster 
the  music  beats,  and  faster  and  faster  they  move, 
crossing  and  recrossing  in  mazy  figures,  the  stringed 
instruments  following  them  with  zeal,  the  castanets, 
hautboys,  and  flutes,  their  interlacing  forms  knot- 
ting in  a  kind  of  ecstasy,  yet  all  as  grave  and 
solemn  as  in  a  song  of  praise,  a  visible  rejoicing  of 
the  soul  at  Christmas  time  and  the  Divine  birth. 
As  David  danced  before  the  ark  for  joy,  so  do 
these  boys  dance  now  with  holy  gladness. 

"I   made   out   something   of   their   costume, — 


216  MUEILLO. 

broad  Spanish  hats,  turned  up  with  a  panache  of 
blue  feathers,  the  Virgin's  color,  a  flowing  mantle 
of  the  same  hue  over  one  shoulder,  glittering  in  the 
light,  white  satin  vests,  and  white  hose  and  shoes. 

"  The  dance  is  most  ancient,  archi-old,  as  one  may 
say  —  of  an  origin  Phoenician  or  Arab,  sanctified  to 
Christian  use.  The  music,  like  the  dance,  quaint 
and  pathetic,  with  every  now  and  then  a  solo  so 
sweet  it  seems  as  if  an  angel  had  come  down  un- 
seen to  play  it.  I  have  inquired  on  all  hands  what 
is  the  origin  of  this  singular  rite,  which  takes 
place  twice  a  year,  at  Advent  and  Easter,  but  no 
one  can  tell  me.  About  two  centuries  ago  an  Arch- 
bishop of  Seville  objected  to  the  dance  as  giddy 
and  mundane,  and  forbade  it  in  his  cathedral, 
causing  a  terrible  scandal.  The  Sevillians  were 
enraged ;  their  fathers  had  loved  the  dance,  and 
their  fathers  before  them,  and  they  were  ready  to 
defend  it  with  swords  and  staves. 

"  As  the  Archbishop  was  inexorable,  an  appeal 
was  made  to  Koine.  The  Pope  of  that  day,  a  sen- 
sible man,  replied  that  he  could  give  no  judgment 
without  seeing  the  dance  himself ;  so  the  whole 
troop  —  stringed  instruments,  castanets,  serpent, 
cavalier  hats  and  cloaks,  and  the  boys  who  wore 
them  —  were  carried  off  to  Home  at  the  expense  of 
rich  citizens.  Then  the  measure  was  tried  before 
the  Pope  in  the  Vatican,  and  he  approved.  '  Let 
the  citizens  of  Seville  have  their  dance,'  the  Pope 
said ;  '  I  see  no  harm  in  it.  As  long  as  the  clothes 
last  it  shall  continue.' 


MURILLO.  217 

"  Need  I  add  that  those  clothes  never  wore  out, 
but,  like  the  widow's  cruse,  renewed  themselves 
miraculously,  to  the  delight  of  the  town,  and  that 
they  will  continue  to  last  fresh  and  new  as  long  as 
the  gigantic  walls  of  the  cathedral  uprear  them- 
selves, and  the  sun  of  Andalusia  shines  on  the  flat 
plains  ! " 

Murillo  loved  this  old  cathedral,  and  later  he 
painted  for  it  some  of  his  wonderful  pictures, 
among  them  "  The  Guardian  Angel,"  in  which  "  a 
glorious  seraph  with  spreading  wings  leads  a  little, 
trustful  child  by  the  hand,  and  directs  him  to  look 
beyond  earth  into  the  heavenly  light,"  and  "  St.  An- 
thony of  Padua  visited  by  the  infant  Saviour."  The 
saint  is  kneeling  with  outstretched  arms,  looking 
above  to  the  child,  who  descends  through  a  flood  of 
glory  filled  with  cherubs,  drawn  down  by  the  prayers 
of  the  saint.  On  the  table  beside  him  is  a  vase  of 
white  lilies,  which  many  persons  averred  were  so 
natural  that  the  birds  flew  down  the  cathedral 
aisles  to  peck  at  the  flowers.  .  For  this  picture  the 
cathedral  clergy  paid  ten  thousand  reals.  Mrs. 
Jameson  declares  this  the  finest  work  ever  executed 
in  honor  of  St.  Anthony,  a  subject  chosen  by  Titian 
and  scores  of  other  artists. 

When  the  nephew  of  Murillo's  first  master,  Cas- 
tillo, looked  upon  this  work,  he  exclaimed,  "  It  is  all 
over  with  Castillo  !  Is  it  possible  that  Murillo, 
that  servile  imitator  of  my  uncle,  can  be  the  au- 
thor of  all  this  grace  and  beauty  of  coloring  ?  " 

The  canons  told  M.  Viardot  that  the  Duke  of 


218  MUEILLO. 

Wellington  offered  to  pay  for  this  picture  as  many 
gold  pieces  as  would  cover  its  surface  of  fifteen 
feet  square,  about  two  hundred  and  forty  thousand 
dollars.  In  1874  the  figure  of  St.  Anthony  was 
cut  out,  stolen,  and  sold  to  a  Mr.  Schaus,  a  picture- 
dealer  of  New  York,  for  two  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars.  He  turned  his  purchase  over  to  the  Span- 
ish consul,  who  restored  it  to  the  cathedral. 

St.  Anthony  was  a  Portuguese  by  birth,  and 
taught  divinity  in  the  universities  of  Bologna,  Tou- 
louse, Paris,  and  Padua.  Finally  he  became  an 
eloquent  preacher  among  the  people.  It  is  said 
that  when  they  refused  to  listen  he  preached  to 
the  dwellers  in  the  sea,  "  and  an  infinite  number  of 
fishes,  great  and  little,  lifted  their  heads  above 
water,  and  listened  attentively  to  the  sermon  of  the 
saint ! " 

Very  many  miracles  are  attributed  to  him.  He 
restored  to  life  by  his  prayers  Carilla,  a  young 
maiden  who  was  drowned  ;  also  a  young  child  who 
was  scalded  to  death.;  renewed  the  foot  of  a  young 
man  who  had  cut  it  off  because  the  saint  rebuked 
him  for  having  kicked  his  brother ;  caused  the  body 
of  a  murdered  youth  to  speak,  and  acquit  an  old 
man  who  had  been  accused  of  his  death ;  made  a 
glass  cup  remain  whole  when  thrown  against  a 
marble  slab,  while  the  marble  was  shivered. 

"  The  legend  of  the  mule,"  says  Mrs.  Jameson, 
"  is  one  of  the  most  popular  of  the  miracles  of  St. 
Anthony,  and  is  generally  found  in  the  Franciscan 
churches.  A  certain  heretic  called  Bovidilla  en- 


MUEILLO.  219 

tertained  doubts  of  the  real  presence  in  the  sacra- 
ment, and,  after  a  long  argument  with  the  saint,  re- 
quired a  miracle  in  proof  of  this  favorite  dogma  of 
the  Koman  Catholic  Church.  St.  Anthony,  who 
was  about  to  carry  the  host  in  procession,  encoun- 
tered the  mule  of  Bovidilla,  which  fell  down  on  its 
knees  at  the  command  of  the  saint,  and,  although 
its  heretic  master  endeavored  to  tempt  it  aside  by 
a  sieve  full  of  oats,  remained  kneeling  till  the  host 
had  passed." 

After  Murillo's  return  from  the  house  of  Velas- 
quez to  Seville,  he  worked  incessantly  for  nearly 
three  years  upon  eleven  paintings  for  the  convent 
of  the  Franciscans  near  Casa  del  Ayuntamiento. 
The  cloisters  contained  three  hundred  marble  col- 
umns. For  the  decoration  of  a  minor  cloister 
the  priests  offered  so  small  an  amount  that  no 
leading  artist  in  Seville  would  attempt  it.  But 
Murillo,  still  poor,  and  not  well  known,  gladly  ac- 
cepted the  work.  It  was  a  laborious  undertaking, 
with  perhaps  scarcely  enough  compensation  to  pro- 
vide for  his  daily  needs ;  but  it  made  him  famous. 
Henceforward  there  was  neither  poverty  nor  ob- 
scurity for  the  great  Spanish  master. 

The  first  picture  for  the  Franciscans  represented 
"  St.  Francis,  on  an  iron  bed,  listening  to  an  angel 
who  is  playing  on  a  violin."  The  second  portrayed 
"  St.  Diego  blessing  a  pot  of  broth,"  which  he  is 
about  to  give  to  a  group  of  beggars  at  the  gate  of  his 
convent.  Another  picture,  called,  "The  Angel 
Kitchen/'  now  in  the  Louvre,  represents  a  monk 


220  MUKILLO. 

who  fell  in  a  state  of  ecstasy  whilst  cooking  for 
the  convent,  and  angels  are  doing  his  work.  Still 
another  represents  a  Franciscan  praying  over  the 
dead  body  of  a  friar,  as  if  to  restore  it  to  life. 
This  is  now  owned  by  Mr.  Richard  Ford,  of  Devon- 
shire, England. 

The  finest  picture  of  the  series  represents  "  The 
Death  of  St.  Clara  of  Assisi."  She  was  the  daughter 
of  a  noble  knight  of  great  wealth,  and  much  sought 
in  marriage.  Desiring  to  devote  herself  to  a  reli- 
gious life,  she  repaired  to  St.  Francis  for  counsel, 
who  advised  her  to  enter  a  convent.  She  fled  from 
her  home  to  where  St.  Francis  dwelt,  and  he  with 
his  own  hands  cut  off  her  luxuriant  golden  tresses, 
and  threw  over  her  his  own  penitential  habit  of 
gray  wool.  Her  family  sought  to  force  her  away, 
but  later  her  sister  Agnes  and  mother  Ortolana 
joinecWier  in  the  convent. 

On  the  death  of  her  father,  St.  Clara  gave  all 
her  wealth  to  the  poor.  She  went,  like  the  others 
of  her  order,  barefoot  or  sandalled,  slept  on  the 
hard  earth,  and  lived  in  silence.  The  most  notable 
event  of  her  life  was  the  dispersion  of  the  Saracens. 
Emperor  Frederic  ravaged  the  shores  of  the  Adri- 
atic. In  his  army  were  a  band  of  infidel  Saracens, 
who  attacked  the  Convent  of  San  Damiano.  The 
frightened  nuns  rushed  to  the  side  of  "Mother 
Clara,"  who  had  long  been  unable  to  rise  from  her 
bed.  At  once  she  arose,  took  from  the  altar  the 
pyx  of  ivory  and  silver  which  contained  the  Host, 
placed  it  on  the  threshold,  knelt,  and  began  to 


MURILLO.  221 

sing.  The  barbarians  were  overcome  with  fear, 
and  tumbled  headlong  down  their  scaling-ladders. 

Mrs.  Jameson  says,  "  The  most  beautiful  picture 
of  St.  Clara  I  have  ever  seen  represents  the  death 
of  the  saint,  or,  rather,  the  vision  which  preceded 
her  death,  painted  by  Murillo.  ...  St.  Clara  lies  on 
her  couch,  her  heavenly  face  lighted  up  with  an 
ecstatic  expression.  Weeping  nuns  and  friars  stand 
around ;  she  sees  them  not,  her  eyes  are  fixed  on 
the  glorious  procession  which  approaches  her  bed : 
first,  our  Saviour,  leading  his  Virgin-mother ;  they 
are  followed  by  a  company  of  virgin -martyrs, 
headed  by  St.  Catharine,  all  wearing  their  crowns 
and  bearing  their  palms,  as  though  they  had  come 
to  summon  her  to  their  paradise  of  bliss.  Nothing 
can  be  imagined  more  beautiful,  bright,  and  elysian 
than  these  figures,  nor  more  divine  with  faith  and 
transport  than  the  head  of  St.  Clara."  b 

These  paintings  of  Murillo  were  the  one  topic  of 
conversation  in  Seville.  Orders  for  pictures  came 
from  every  side  ;  artists  crowded  to  the  convent  to 
study  works  so  unlike  their  own  ;  the  chief  families 
of  the  city  made  the  hitherto  unknown  young  man 
a  welcome  guest  at  their  palaces ;  fame  and  position 
had  come  when  he  was  only  thirty  years  old. 

For  one  hundred  and  seventy  years  these  pictures 
were  the  pride  of  the  convent,  when  they  were 
taken  by  Marshal  Soult  under  Napoleon,  and  eventu- 
ally scattered  through  Northern  Europe.  The  con- 
vent was  destroyed  by  fire  soon  afterwards. 

The    old    adage    that    "  blessings    never    come 


222  MURILLO. 

singly  "  was  realized  in  the  case  of  Murillo,  for  at 
this  time  he  married  a  wealthy  lady  from  a  family 
of  high  renown,  Dona  Beatriz  de  Cobrera  y  Soto- 
mayor,  who  dwelt  at  Pilas,  about  five  leagues  from 
Seville.  It  is  said  that  he  first  saw  her  when  paint- 
ing an  altar-piece  in  the  Church  of  San  Geronimo 
at  Pilas,  and  portrayed  her  as  an  angel  in  his 
picture  while  he  was  winning  her  love. 

Their  married  life  seems  to  have  been  an  emi- 
nently happy  one.  Their  home  became  a  centre 
for  artists  and  the  best  social  circles  of  the  city. 
Three  children  were  born  to  them :  Gabriel,  who 
went  to  the  West  Indies ;  Francisca,  who  became  a 
nun;  and  Gaspar,  afterwards  a  canon  of  Seville 
Cathedral. 

Murillo's  manner  of  painting  changed  now  from 
what  the  Spanish  call  frio,  or  his  cold  style,  to 
cdlido,  or  his  warm  style,  where  the  outlines  were 
less  pronounced,  the  figures  rounder,  and  the  color- 
ing more  luminous  and  tender.  "  The  works  of 
the  new  manner,"  says  Sweetser,  "  are  notable  for 
graceful  and  well-arrayed  drapery,  skilfully  dis- 
posed lights,  harmonious  tints,  soft  contours,  and 
a  portrait-like  naturalness  in  the  faces,  lacking  in 
idealism,  but  usually  pure  and  pleasing.  His  flesh- 
tints  were  almost  uniformly  heightened  by  dark 
gray  backgrounds,  and  were  so  amazingly  true  that 
one  of  his  critics  has  said  that  they  seemed  to  have 
been  painted  with  blood  and  milk  (con  sangre  y 
leche)." 

Many  of  the  Madonnas  which  Murillo  painted 


MURILLO.  223 

were  evidently  from  the  same  sweet,  pure-faced 
model,  and  it  is  believed  that  they  are  the  likeness 
of  his  wife.  His  boys  were  his  models  for  the 
infants  Jesus  and  John. 

His  first  work  in  the  so-called  warm  manner  was 
"  Our  Lady  of  the  Conception,"  a  colossal  picture 
for  the  Brotherhood  of  the  True  Cross.  The  monks 
were  at  first  displeased,  thinking  that  the  finishing 
was  not  sufficiently  delicate ;  but  when  Murillo 
caused  it  to  be  hung  in  the  dome,  for  the  high 
position  for  which  it  was  intended,  they  were 
greatly  delighted.  Murillo,  however,  made  them 
pay  double  the  original  price  for  their  fault-finding. 

"  Saints  Leander  and  Isidore,"  two  archbishops 
of  Seville,  in  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries,  who 
fought  the  Arian  heresy,  was  his  next  picture,  fol- 
lowed by  the  "  Nativity  of  the  Virgin,"  —  a  much 
admired  work,  —  a  group  of  women  and  angels 
dressing  the  new-born  Mary. 

In  1656,  for  one  of  the  canons  of  Santa  Maria  la 
Blanca,  Murillo  painted  four  large  semicircular 
pictures,  the  "Immaculate  Conception,"  where  the 
Virgin  is  adored  by  several  saints,  "Faith,"  and 
two  pictures,  "  The  Dream  "  and  "  The  Fulfilment," 
to  illustrate  Our  Lady  of  the  Snow,  the  two  latter 
now  in  the  Academy  of  San  Fernando  at  Madrid. 

According  to  a  fourth-century  legend,  the  Virgin 
appeared  by  night  to  a  wealthy  Koman  senator 
and  his  wife,  commanding  them  to  build  a  church 
in  her  honor  on  a  certain  spot  on  the  Esquiline  Hill, 
which  they  would  find  covered  with  August  snow. 


224  MURILLO. 

They  went  to  Pope  Liberius,  and,  after  obtaining 
his  blessing,  accompanied  by  a  great  concourse  of 
priests  and  people,  sought  the  hill,  found  the  mirac- 
ulous snow  in  summer,  and  gave  all  their  posses- 
sions to  build  the  church. 

One  picture  of  Murillo  represents  the  senator 
in  a  black  velvet  costume,  asleep  in  his  chair,  while 
his  wife  reposes  on  the  floor,  the  Madonna  and 
Holy  Child  above  them ;  the  other  picture  shows 
them  telling  their  dream  to  the  Pope.  Viardot 
calls  these  paintings  the  "miracles  of  Murillo." 
These  were  painted  in  the  last  of  the  three  manners 
of  Murillo,  the  method  usually  adopted  in  his 
Madonnas,  —  the  "  vapory  "  style,  "  with  soft  and 
tender  outlines,  velvety  coloring,  and  shadows 
which  are  only  softened  lights." 

In  1660,  Murillo  founded  an  academy  of  art  in 
Seville,  of  which  he  was  president  for  two  years. 
The  students  were  required  to  abstain  from  swear- 
ing and  ill  behavior,  and  to  give  assent  to  the  fol- 
lowing :  "  Praised  be  the  most  Holy  Sacrament 
and  the  pure  conception  of  our  Lady." 

Murillo  was  a  most  gentle  and  encouraging 
teacher.  His  colored  slave,  Sebastian  Gomez,  who 
had  listened  to  the  teaching  which  he  gave  to 
others,  finished  the  head  of  the  Virgin  which  his 
master  had  left  on  the  easel.  Murillo  exclaimed 
on  seeing  it,  "  I  am  indeed  fortunate,  Sebastian ; 
for  I  have  created  not  only  pictures,  but  a  painter ! " 
Many  of  the  works  of  Gomez,  whom  Murillo  made 
free,  are  still  preserved  and  prized  in  Seville. 


MUEILLO.  225 

During  the  next  ten  years,  Murillo  did  much 
work  for  the  cathedral  clergy;  eight  oval,  half- 
length  pictures  of  saints,  Justa,  Rufina,  Hermen- 
gild,  Sidon,  Leander,  Archbishops  Laureano  and 
Pius,  and  King  Ferdinand ;  the  "Repose  in  Egypt ; " 
the  infants  Christ  and  John  for  the  Antigua  Chapel, 
and  other  works. 

Saints  Justa  and  Rufina  were  daughters  of  a 
potter,  whom  they  assisted.  Some  women  who 
worshipped  Venus  came  to  the  shop  to  buy  vessels 
for  idolatrous  sacrifice.  The  sisters  declared  that 
they  had  nothing  to  sell  for  such  purposes,  as  all 
things  should  be  used  in  the  service  of  God.  The 
Pagan  women  were  so  incensed  that  they  broke  all 
the  earthenware  in  the  place.  The  sisters  then 
broke  the  image  of  Venus,  and  flung  it  into  a 
kennel.  For  this  act  the  populace  seized  them,  and 
took  them  before  the  Prefect.  Justa  expired  on  the 
rack,  and  Rufina  was  strangled.  These  two  saints 
have  always  guarded  the  beautiful  tower  Giralda. 
They  are  said  to  have  preserved  it  from  destruc- 
tion in  1504,  in  a  terrific  thunder-storm.  When 
Espartero  bombarded  Seville  in  1843,  the  people 
believed  that  Giralda  was  encompassed  by  angels 
led  by  these  sisters,  who  turned  aside  the  bombs. 

Murillo  was  now  fifty -two  years  old,  in  the  prime 
of  life,  famous  and  honored.  He  was  named  by 
his  admiring  contemporaries  "  a  better  Titian,"  and 
it  was  asserted  that  even  Apelles  would  have  been 
proud  to  be  called  "the  Grecian  Murillo."  He 
lived  in  a  large  and  handsome  house,  still  carefully 


226  MURILLO, 

preserved,  near  the  Church  of  Santa  Cruz,  not  far 
from  the  Moorish  wall  of  the  city.  "  The  court- 
yard contains  a  marble  fountain,  amidst  flowering 
shrubs,  and  is  surrounded  on  three  sides  by  an 
arcade  upheld  by  marble  pillars.  At  the  rear  is  a 
pretty  garden,  shaded  by  cypress  and  citron  trees, 
and  terminated  by  a  wall  whereon  are  the  remains 
of  ancient  frescos  which  have  been  attributed  to 
the  master  himself.  The  studio  is  on  the  upper 
floor,  and  overlooks  the  Moorish  battlements,  com- 
manding a  beautiful  view  to  the  eastward,  over 
orange-groves  and  rich  corn-lands,  out  to  the  gray 
highlands  about  Alcala." 

Murillo's  only  sister,  Teresa,  had  married  a  noble 
of  Burgos,  a  knight  of  Santiago,  judge  of  the  royal 
colonial  court,  a  man  of  great  cultivation,  and  later 
chief  secretary  of  state  at  Madrid.  The  artist  was 
also  urged  by  King  Charles  II.  to  enter  the  royal 
service  at  Madrid,  especially  since  a  picture  of  the 
Immaculate  Conception,  exhibited  during  a  festival 
of  Corpus  Christi,  had  awakened  the  greatest  en- 
thusiasm among  the  people.  But  he  loved  Seville, 
and  would  not  leave  it.  And  the  Sevillians  equally 
loved  the  man  so  generous  that  he  gave  all  he 
earned  to  the  poor ;  so  diligent  at  his  work  that  he 
had  no  time  for  evil  speaking ;  with  so  much  tact 
and  sweetness  and  vital  piety  that  he  left  no 
shadow  upon  his  name. 

In  1670,  Murillo  began  his  great  works  for  La 
Caridad,  or  the  Hospital  of  St.  George.  The 
Brotherhood  of  Holy  Charity  built  a  church  about 


MUEILLO.  227 

1450,  but  it  had  fallen  into  ruin.  In  1661,  Don 
Miguel  Manura  Vicentelo  de  Leca  determined  to 
restore  and  beautify  the  church  and  its  adjacent 
buildings,  and  secured  over  half  a  million  ducats 
for  this  purpose.  His  history  was  a  strange  one. 

Frances  Elliot  says  of  this  dissolute  man,  "  Re- 
turning at  midnight  from  a  revel  given  by  some 
gallants,  in  the  now  ancient  quarter  of  the  Maca- 
rena,  Don  Miguel  falls  in  with  a  funeral  procession 
with  torches  and  banners.  Some  grandee  of  high 
degree,  doubtless,  there  are  so  many  muffled  fig- 
ures, mutes  carrying  silver  horns,  the  insignia  of 
knighthood  borne  upon  shields,  a  saddled  horse  led 
by  a  shadowy  page,  and  the  dim  forms  of  priests 
and  monks  chanting  death  dirges. 

"  Don  Miguel  can  recall  no  death  at  court  or 
among  the  nobles,  and  this  is  plainly  a  corpse  of 
quality.  Nor  can  he  explain  the  midnight  burial, 
a  thing  unknown  except  in  warfare  or  in  time  of 
plague ;  so,  advancing  from  the  dark  gateway 
where  he  had  stood  to  let  the  procession  pass,  he 
addresses  himself  to  one  of  the  muffled  figures,  and 
asks,  '  Whose  body  are  they  carrying  to  the  Osario 
at  this  time  of  night  ?  ' 

" '  Don  Miguel  de  Manara,'  is  the  answer ;  'a  great 
noble.  Will  you  follow  us  and  pray  for  his  sinful 
soul ? ' 

"  As  these  words  are  spoken,  the  funeral  proces- 
sion seems  to  pause,  and  one  advances  who  flings 
back  the  wreaths  and  flowers  which  shroud  the  face, 
and  lo  !  Don  Miguel  gazes  on  his  own  visage. 


228  MUBILLO. 

"  Spellbound,  he  seems  to  join  the  ghostly  throng 
which  wends  its  slow  way  into  the  Church  of  Santa 
Inez,  where  spectral  priests  appear  to  meet  it,  and 
carry  the  bier  into  the  nave,  where,  next  morning, 
Don  Miguel  is  found,  by  the  nuns  coming  to  matins, 
insensible  upon  the  stones." 

He  at  once  reformed  his  vicious  life,  erected  a 
great  cloistered  hospital,  with  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  churches  in  Seville,  and  endowed  it,  so 
that  a  large  company  of  priests,  sisters  of  charity, 
physicians,  and  domestics  could  be  provided  for. 
Don  Miguel  caused  this  inscription  to  be  cut  on 
the  fa9ade  of  the  hospital :  "  This  house  shall 
stand  as  long  as  God  shall  be  feared  in  it,  and 
Jesus  Christ  be  served  in  the  persons  of  His  poor. 
Whoever  enters  here  must  leave  at  the  door  both 
avarice  and  pride." 

The  noble  was  buried  at  the  church  door,  so  that 
all  who  passed ;  in  might  trample  upon  his  grave. 
The  monumental  slab  bears  the  perhaps  not  inap- 
propriate words,  dictated  by  himself :  "  To  the 
memory  of  the  greatest  sinner  that  ever  lived, 
Don  Miguel  de  Manara." 

Murillo  painted  for  the  new  Church  of  St. 
George  eight  pictures  for  the  side  walls,  and  three 
for  the  altars,  for  which  he  received  over  seventy- 
eight  thousand  reals.  The  "  Annunciation,"  the 
"  Infant  Saviour,"  and  the  "  Infant  St.  John  "  were 
destined  for  the  side  altars ;  the  remaining  eight, 
"Moses  striking  the  Rock,"  the  "Prodigal's  Re- 
turn," "  Abraham  receiving  the  Three  Angels,"  the 


MUBILLO.  229 

"  Charity  of  San  Juan  de  Dios,"  the  "  Miracle  of 
the  Loaves  and  Fishes,"  U0ur  Lord  healing  the 
Paralytic  at  the  Pool  of  Bethesda,"  "St.  Peter 
released  from  Prison  by  the  Angel,"  and  "  St. 
Elizabeth  of  Hungary  tending  the  Sick,"  were  in- 
tended for  the  walls.  Only  three  of  these  eight 
are  left  at  La  Caridad, — "  Moses,"  the  "  Loaves  and 
Fishes,"  and  "  San  Juan,"  —  the  rest  having  been 
carried  to  France  by  Marshal  Soult. 

Of  these  three,  "  San  Juan  "  is  considered  the 
"most  spirited  and  powerful."  This  saint  was 
the  founder  of  the  Hospitallers  or  Brothers  of 
Charity.  Born  of  very  poor  parents,  at  nine  years 
of  age  he  ran  away  from  home  with  a  priest,  who 
deserted  him  on  the  road  to  Madrid,  at  a  little 
village  near  Oropesa,  in  Castile.  He  hired  himself 
to  a  shepherd ;  later  he  entered  the  wars  between 
Charles  V.  and  Francis  I.,  and  became  a  brave  but 
profligate  soldier.  He  was  about  to  be  hanged  for 
allowing  some  booty  to  be  carried  off,  over  which 
he  had  been  placed  as  sentinel.  The  rope  was 
already  around  his  neck,  when  an  officer,  touched 
with  pity,  interfered  to  save  his  life,  on  condition 
that  he  should  quit  the  camp. 

After  various  wanderings,  he  returned  to  his 
native  town,  only  to  find  that  both  his  father  and 
mother  had  died  of  grief  in  consequence  of  his 
flight.  He  nearly  lost  his  reason  through  remorse, 
became  converted,  and  began  to  devote  his  life  to 
the  poor  and  the  sick.  To  the  deserted  shed  which 
served  for  his  home,  he  brought  the  starving  and 


230  MURILLO. 

wretched  whom  he  found  in  the  streets,  and  worked 
for  them  and  begged  for  them.  He  finally  obtained 
a  large  building,  where,  in  the  winter,  he  kept  a 
great  tire  to  warm  homeless  travellers. 

"Thus  passed  ten  years  of  his  life,"  says  Mrs. 
Jameson,  "without  a  thought  of  himself;  and 
when  he  died,  exhausted  in  body,  but  still  fervent 
and  energetic  in  mind,  he,  unconsciously  as  it 
seemed,  bequeathed  to  Christendom  one  of  the 
noblest  of  all  its  religious  institutions. 

"  Under  how  many  different  names  and  forms 
has  the  little  hospital  of  Juan  de  Dios  been  repro- 
duced throughout  Christian  Europe,  Catholic  and 
Protestant !  Our  houses  of  refuge,  our  asylums 
for  the  destitute ;  the  brotherhood  of  the  '  Caridad/ 
in  Spain  ;  that  of  the  '  Misericordia,'  in  Italy ;  the 
'Maisonsde  Charite,'  in  France;  the  '  Barmherz- 
igen  Bruder,'  in  Germany,  —  all  these  sprang  out 
of  the  little  hospital  of  this  poor,  low-born,  un- 
learned, half-crazed  Juan  de  Dios  !  I  wonder  if 
those  who  go  to  visit  the  glories  of  the  Alhambra, 
and  dream  of  the  grandeur  of  the  Moors,  ever 
think  of  him. 

"  The  only  representation  of  this  good  saint 
which  can  rank  high  as  a  work  of  art  is  a  famous 
picture  by  Murillo,  painted  for  the  Church  of  the 
Caridad,  at  Seville.  In  a  dark,  stormy  night,  Juan 
is  seen  staggering  —  almost  sinking  —  under  the 
weight  of  a  poor  dying  wretch,  whom  he  is  carry- 
ing to  his  hospital.  An  angel  sustains  him  on  his 
way.  The  dark  form  of  the  burden  and  the  sober 


MURILLO.  231 

gray  frock  of  the  bearer  are  dimly  seen  in  the 
darkness,  through  which  the  glorious  countenance 
of  the  seraph,  and  his  rich  yellow  drapery,  tell 
like  a  burst  of  sunshine." 

Of  the  five  pictures  removed  by  Marshal  Soult, 
the  "St.  Elizabeth  of  Hungary,"  called  "El 
Tinoso,"  now  in  the  Madrid  Academy,  is  considered 
one  of  Murillo's  finest  works.  It  represents  her 
dressed  in  her  royal  robes,  washing  the  head  of  a 
leprous  boy,  while  around Jier  are  beggars  and  the 
ladies  of  her  court. 

"  The  St.  Elizabeth,"  says  John  Hay,  in  his  "  Cas- 
tilian  Days/'  "  is  a  triumph  of  genius  over  a  most 
terribly  repulsive  subject.  The  wounds  and  sores 
of  the  beggars  are  painted  with  unshrinking  fidel- 
ity, but  every  vulgar  detail  is  redeemed  by  the 
beauty  and  majesty  of  the  whole.  I  think  in  these 
pictures  of  Murillo  (his  Madonnas  and  others)  the 
last  word  of  Spanish  art  was  reached.  There  was 
no  further  progress  possible  in  life,  even  for  him. 
'  Other  heights  in  other  lives,  God  willing.'  " 

Of  Murillo's  "  Marys  of  the  Conception,  that  fill 
the  room  with  light  and  majesty,"  Colonel  Hay 
beautifully  says :  "  They  hang  side  by  side,  so 
alike  and  yet  so  distinct  in  character.  One  is  a 
woman  in  knowledge  and  a  goddess  in  purity ;  the 
other,  absolute  innocence,  startled  by  the  stupen- 
dous revelation,  and  exalted  by  the  vaguely  com- 
prehended glory  of  the  future.  It  is  before  this 
picture  that  the  visitor  always  lingers  longest. 
The  face  is  the  purest  expression  of  girlish  loveli- 


232  MURILLO. 

ness  possible  to  art.  (Supposed  to  be  the  face  of 
his  daughter,  Francesca.)  The  Virgin  floats,  up- 
borne by  rosy  clouds ;  flocks  of  pink  cherubs  flutter 
at  her  feet,  waving  palm  branches.  The  golden  air 
is  thick  with  suggestions  of  dim,  celestial  faces, 
but  nothing  mars  the  imposing  solitude  of  the 
Queen  of  Heaven,  shrined  alone,  throned  in  the 
luminous  azure.  Surely  no  man  ever  understood 
or  interpreted,  like  this  grand  Andalusian,  the 
power  that  the  worship  of  woman  exerts  on  the 
religions  of  the  world.  All  the  passionate  love 
that  has  been  poured  out  in  all  the  ages  at  the  feet 
of  Ashtaroth  and  Artemis  and  Aphrodite  and 
Freya  found  visible  form  and  color  at  last  on  that 
immortal  canvas,  where,  with  his  fervor  of  religion, 
and  the  full  strength  of  his  virile  devotion  to 
beauty,  he  created,  for  the  adoration  of  those  who 
should  follow  him,  this  type  of  the  perfect  femi- 
nine, — 

"  '  Thee  !   standing  loveliest  in  tlie  open  heaven  ! 
Ave  Maria  1    only  heaven  and  Thee  ! '  ' 

The  story  of  St.  Elizabeth  is  both  touching  and 
beautiful.  The  daughter  of  Andreas  II.,  King  of 
Hungary,  born  in  1207,  she  was  betrothed,  in  her 
childhood,  to  Duke  Louis  of  Thuringia.  She  early 
developed  the  most  generous  and  spiritual  charac- 
ter, giving  to  the  poor,  praying  much,  even  at  mid- 
night, on  the  bare,  cold  earth,  winning  for  herself 
the  hatred  of  a  fashionable  court  and  the  adoration 
of  her  subjects.  Various  legends  are  told  of  her. 


MURILLO.  233 

"  When  Elizabeth  was  ministering  to  her  poor  at 
Eisenach,"  says  Mrs.  Jameson,  "  she  found  a  sick 
child  cast  out  from  among  the  others  because  he 
was  a  leper,  and  so  loathsome  in  his  misery  that 
none  would  touch  him  or  even  go  nigh  him  ;  but 
Elizabeth,  moved  with  compassion,  took  him  in  her 
arms,  carried  him  up  the  steep  ascent  to  the  castle, 
and,  while  her  attendants  fled  at  the  spectacle,  and 
her  mother-in-law,  Sophia,  loaded  her  with  re- 
proaches, she  laid  the  sufferer  in  her  own  bed. 
Her  husband  was  then  absent,  but  shortly  after- 
wards his  horn  was  heard  to  sound  at  the  gate. 
Then  his  mother,  Sophia,  ran  out  to  meet  him, 
saying,  '  My  son,  come  hither !  See  with  whom 
thy  wife  shares  her  bed ! '  And  she  led  him  up 
to  the  chamber,  telling  him  what  had  happened. 
This  time,  Louis  was  filled  with  impatience  and 
disgust ;  he  rushed  to  the  bed  and  snatched  away 
the  coverlid ;  but  behold  !  instead  of  the  leper, 
there  lay  a  radiant  infant,  with  the  features  of  the 
New-born  in  Bethlehem  ;  and  while  they  stood 
amazed,  the  vision  smiled,  and  vanished  from  their 
sight. 

"  Elizabeth,  in  the  absence  of  her  husband,  daily 
visited  the  poor,  who  dwelt  in  the  suburbs  of 
Eisenach  and  in  the  huts  x  of  the  neighboring  val- 
leys. One  day,  during  a  severe  winter,  she  left 
her  castle  with  a  single  attendant,  carrying  in  the 
skirts  of  her  robe  a  supply  of  bread,  meat,  and  eggs 
for  a  certain  poor  family ;  and,  as  she  was  descend- 
ing the  frozen  and  slippery  path,  her  husband, 


234  MURILLO. 

returning  from  the  chase,  met  her,  bending  under 
the  weight  of  her  charitable  burden.  'What  dost 
thou  here,  my  Elizabeth  ?  '  he  said.  '  Let  us  see 
what  thou  art  carrying  away  ? '  and  she,  confused 
and  blushing  to  be  so  discovered,  pressed  her  man- 
tle to  her  bosom  ;  but  he  insisted,  and,  opening  her 
robe,  he  beheld  only  red  and  white  roses,  more 
beautiful  and  fragrant  than  any  that  grow  on  this 
earth,  even  at  siimmer-tide ;  and  it  was  now  the 
depth  of  winter ! 

"Then  he  was  about  to  embrace  his  wife,  but, 
looking  in  her  face,  he  was  overawed  by  a  super- 
natural glory,  which  seemed  to  emanate  from  every 
feature,  and  he  dared  not  touch  her;  he  bade 
her  go  on  her  way  and  fulfil  her  mission  ;  but, 
taking  from  her  lap  one  of  the  roses  of  Paradise, 
he  put  it  in  his  bosom,  and  continued  to  ascend  the 
mountain  slowly,  with  his  head  declined,  and  pon- 
dering these  things  in  his  heart. 

"  In  1226,  a  terrible  famine  afflicted  all  Germany ; 
but  the  country  of  Thuringia  suffered  more  than 
any  other.  Elizabeth  distributed  to  the  poor  all  the 
corn  in  the  royal  granaries.  Every  day  a  certain 
quantity  of  bread  was  baked,  and  she  herself 
served  it  out  to  the  people,  who  thronged  around 
the  gates  of  the  castle,  sometimes  to  the  number 
of  nine  hundred.  Uniting  prudence  with  charity, 
she  so  arranged  that  each  person  had  his  just 
share,  and  so  husbanded  her  resources  that  they 
lasted  through  the  summer ;  and  when  harvest- 
time  came  round  again,  she  sent  them  into  the 


MURILLO.  235 

fields,  provided  with  scythes  and  sickles,  and  to 
every  man  she  gave  a  shirt  and  a  pair  of  new 
shoes.  But,  as  was  usual,  the  famine  had  been 
succeeded  by  a  great  plague  and  mortality,  and  the 
indefatigable  and  inexhaustible  charity  of  Eliza- 
beth was  again  at  hand. 

"In  the  city  of  Eisenach,  at  the  foot  of  the 
Wartburg,  she  founded  an  hospital  of  twenty  beds, 
for  poor  women  only ;  and  another,  called  the  Hos- 
pital of  St.  Anne,  in  which  all  the  sick  and  poor 
who  presented  themselves  were  received ;  and 
Elizabeth  herself  went  from  one  to  the  other,  min- 
istering to-  the  wretched  inmates  with  a  cheerful 
countenance,  although  the  sights  of  misery  and 
disease  were  often  so  painful  and  so  disgusting 
that  the  ladies  who  attended  upon  her  turned 
away  their  heads,  and  murmured  and  complained 
of  the  task  assigned  to  them. 

"  She  also  founded  a  hospital  especially  for  poor 
children.  It  is  related  by  an  eye-witness  that 
whenever  she  appeared  among  them  they  gath- 
ered round  her,  crying  '  Mutter  !  Mutter ! '  cling- 
ing to  her  robe  and  kissing  her  hands.  She, 
mother-like,  spoke  to  them  tenderly,  washed  and 
dressed  their  ulcerated  limbs,  and  even  brought 
them  little  toys  to  amuse  them.  In  these  chari- 
ties, she  not  only  exhausted  the  treasury,  but  she 
sold  her  own  robes  and  jewels,  and  pledged  the 
jewels  of  the  state.  When  the  landgrave  (her 
husband)  returned,  the  officers  and  councillors 
went  out  to  meet  him,  and,  fearing  his  displeas- 


236  MURILLO. 

ure,  they  began  to  complain  of  the  manner  in 
which  Elizabeth,  in  their  despite,  had  lavished 
the  public  treasures.  But  Louis  would  not  listen 
to  them  ;  he  cut  them  short,  repeating,  (  How  is 
my  dear  wife  ?  how  are  my  children  ?  are  they 
well  ?  Let  her  give  what  she  will,  so  long  as  she 
leaves  me  my  castles  of  Eisenach,  Wartburg,  and 
Naumburg ! '  Then  he  hurried  to  the  gates,  and 
Elizabeth  met  him  with  her  children,  and  threw 
herself  into  his  arms,  and  kissed  him  a  thousand 
times,  and  said  to  him  tenderly,  '  See !  I  have 
given  to  the  Lord  what  is  his,  and  he  has  pre- 
served to  us  what  is  thine  and  mine  ! ' ' 

Louis  was  soon  after  killed  in  the  Crusades,  and 
she  and  her  children  were  driven  out  of  Thuringia 
by  his  brothers,  Henry  and  Conrad.  Later,  some 
of  her  possessions  were  restored  to  her.  She  spun 
wool  to  earn  more  money  to  give  away,  and  wore 
ragged  clothes  that  she  might  help  the  destitute. 
She  died  at  twenty-four,  singing  hymns,  her  sweet 
voice  murmuring,  "  Silence  !  "  at  the  last. 

"No  sooner  had  Elizabeth  breathed  her  last 
breath  than  the  people  surrounded  her  couch,  tore 
away  her  robe,  cut  off  her  hair,  even  mutilated  her 
remains  for  relics.  She  was  buried  amid  miracles 
and  lamentations,  and  four  years  after  her  death 
she  was  canonized  by  Gregory  IX." 

Murillo's  "  Abraham  receiving  the  Angels  "  and 
"  The  Prodigal's  Return  "  were  purchased  of  Mar- 
shal Soult  by  the  Duke  of  Sutherland,  and  are 
now  in  Stafford  House.  "  The  Healing  of  the  Par- 


MURILLO.  237 

alytic  "  was  purchased  of  Marshal  Soult  for  thirty- 
two  thousand  dollars,  and  is  now  in  the  possession 
of  Mr.  Tomline  of  London.  The  head  of  the 
Christ  is  thought  to  be  Murillo's  best  representa- 
tion of  our  Lord.  "  The  soft  violet  hue,  so  dear  to 
Valencian  art,  of  the  Saviour's  robe,  is  skilfully 
opposed  to  the  deep  brown  of  St.  Peter's  mantle, 
a  rich  tint  then  and  still  made  by  Andalusian 
painters  from  beef-bones."  "The  Release  of  St. 
Peter  "  is  at  the  Hermitage,  in  St.  Petersburg. 

Before  the  paintings  for  La  Caridad  were  fin- 
ished, Murillo  was  asked  to  decorate  the  new 
Capuchin  church.  For  three  years  he  worked 
here,  not  leaving  the  convent,  it  is  said,  for  a 
single  day.  Such  diligence  is  most  suggestive  to 
those  persons  who  expect  to  win  success  without 
unremitting  labor  !  Of  the  more  than  twenty  pic- 
tures painted  here  by  Murillo,  nine  formed  the 
retablo  of  the  high  altar,  and  eight  were  on  the 
side  altars.  Seventeen  of  these  are  now  in  the 
Seville  Museum. 

The  immense  altar-piece,  "  The  Virgin  granting 
to  St.  Francis  the  Jubilee  of  the  Porciuncula,"  is 
now  in  the  National  Museum  of  Madrid.  This 
was  a  feast  in  honor  of  the  Cavern  of  St.  Francis 
of  Assisi,  in  which  he  received  a  visit  from  the 
Virgin  and  Child.  Thirty-three  beautiful  cherubs 
are  showering  the  kneeling  St.  Francis  with  red 
and  white  roses,  blossoms  from  the  briers  with 
which  he  scourged  himself.  Over  the  high  altar 
were  pictures  of  "Saints  Justa  and  Eufina,"  "St. 


238  MURILLO. 

Anthony  of  Padua,"  "  St.  John  in  the  Desert," 
"St.  Joseph,"  "St.  Felix  of  Cantalicio,"  the 
"  Veronica,"  "  Saints  Leander  and  Bonaventura," 
and  a  gem  called  "The  Madonna  of  the  Xapkin." 

Murillo  had  so  endeared  himself  to  one  of  the 
lay  brethren  of  the  convent,  a  cook,  that  he  begged 
some  token  of  remembrance  from  the  hand  of  the 
great  artist.  As  he  had  no  canvas,  Murillo  took 
the  napkin  which  the  cook  had  brought  with  his 
food,  and,  before  nightfall,  made  a  most  beautiful 
Virgin,  and  a  Child  so  natural  that  it  seems,  says 
E.  G.  Minor,  in  her  life  of  Murillo,  "  as  if  it  would 
spring  from  its  mother's  arms.  The  coloring  of 
this  picture,  of  which  innumerable  copies  and 
engravings  have  been  made,  was  never  surpassed 
even  by  Murillo  himself." 

St.  Veronica  was  a  noble-hearted  woman,  who, 
seeing  the  Saviour  pass  her  door,  on  his  way  to 
Calvary,  wiped  the  perspiration  from  his  brow 
with  her  handkerchief  or  veil.  To  her  surprise 
and  delight,  she  found  an  image  of  the  Lord's  face 
upon  it.  She  suffered  martyrdom  under  Xero. 

The  great  pictures  on  the  side  altars  of  the 
church  illustrated  "St.  Thomas  of  Villanueva," 
which  the  artist  himself  esteemed  the  best  of  all 
his  works ;  "  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  embracing  the 
Crucified  Redeemer,"  "  St.  Anthony  of  Padua  and 
the  Infant  Christ";  the  "Vision  of  St.  Felix,"  the 
"  Annunciation,"  the  "  Immaculate  Conception," 
the  "Nativity,"  and  the  "Virgin  with  the  Head 
of  the  Saviour  on  her  Knee." 


MURILLO.  239 

St.  Thomas  is  represented  as  at  the  door  of  his 
cathedral,  giving  alms  to  beggars.  "  In  the  year 
1544,"  says  Mrs.  Jameson,  "  Charles  V.  showed 
his  respect  for  him  by  nominating  him  Archbishop 
of  Valencia.  He  accepted  the  dignity  with  the 
greatest  reluctance.  He  arrived  in  Valencia  in  an 
old  black  cassock,  and  a  hat  which  he  had  worn 
for  twenty-one  years ;  and  as  he  had  never  in  his 
life  kept  anything  for  himself  beyond  what  was 
necessary  for  his  daily  wants,  he  was  so  poor  that 
the  canons  of  his  cathedral  thought  proper  to 
present  him  with  four  thousand  crowns  for  his 
outfit;  he  thanked  them  gratefully,  and  immedi- 
ately ordered  the  sum  to  be  carried  to  the  hospital 
for  the  sick  and  poor ;  and  from  this  time  forth  we 
find  his  life  one  series  of  beneficent  actions.  He 
began  by  devoting  two-thirds  of  the  revenues  of 
his  diocese  to  purposes  of  charity. 

"  He  divided  those  who  had  a  claim  on  him  into 
six  classes :  first,  the  bashful  poor  who  had  seen 
better  days,  and  who  were  ashamed  to  beg ;  sec- 
ondly, the  poor  girls  whose  indigence  and  misery 
exposed  them  to  danger  and  temptation ;  in  the 
third  class  were  the  poor  debtors ;  in  the  fourth, 
the  poor  orphans  and  foundlings  ;  in  the  fifth,  the 
sick,  the  lame,  and  the  infirm ;  lastly,  for  the  poor 
strangers  and  travellers  who  arrived  in  the  city  or 
passed  through  it,  without  knowledge  where  to  lay 
their  heads,  he  had  a  great  kitchen  open  at  all 
hours  of  the  day  and  night,  where  every  one  who 
came  was  supplied  with  food,  a  night's  rest,  and  a 


240  MURILLO. 

small  gratuity  to  assist  him  on  his  journey.  '  There 
were  few  churches  or  convents  on  the  sunny  side 
of  the  Sierra  Morena  without  some  memorial  pic- 
ture of  this  holy  man,'  but  the  finest  beyond  all 
comparison  are  those  of  Murillo." 

The  "  St.  Francis  "  represents  Christ  appearing 
to  the  saint  in  his  grotto  on  Mount  Alvernus  when 
he  received  the  stigmata,  wounds  similar  to  those 
of  the  Saviour  in  the  Crucifixion. 

In  1678,  Murillo  painted  for  the  Hospital  de  los 
Venerables,  at  Seville,  an  asylum  for  aged  priests, 
"St.  Peter  Weeping,"  the  "Virgin  and  Child  en- 
throned on  Clouds,"  the  portrait  of  his  friend  Don 
Justino  Neve  y  Yevenes,  and  the  "Immaculate 
Conception,"  now  in  the  Louvre,  for  which  the 
French  government  paid,  in  1852,  at  the  sale  of 
Marshal  Soult's  collection,  over  one  hundred  and 
twenty-three  thousand  dollars.  The  beautiful  Vir- 
gin, in  her  mantle  of  exquisite  blue,  over  her  white 
robe,  floats  upward  toward  the  sky,  attended  by 
angels,  her  feet  treading  upon  the  crescent,  show- 
ing her  triumph  over  the  other  religions  of  the 
world.  It  is  a  marvel  of  color  and  pure  saintly 
expression. 

Viardot  says :  "  Murillo  comes  up,  in  every 
respect,  to  what  our  imagination  could  hope  or 
conceive.  His  earthly  daylight  is  perfectly  natu- 
ral and  true ;  his  heavenly  day  is  full  of  radiance. 
We  find  in  the  attitude  of  the  saints,  and  the 
expression  of  their  features,  all  that  the  most 
ardent  piety,  all  that  the  most  passionate  exalta- 


MURILLO.  241 

tion,  can  feel  or  express  in  extreme  surprise,  de- 
light, and  adoration.  As  for  the  visions,  they 
appear  with,  all  the  pomp  of  a  celestial  train,  in 
which,  are  marvellously  grouped  the  different 
spirits  of  the  immortal  hierarchy,  from  the  arch 
angel  with  outspread  wings  to  the  bodiless  heads 
of  the  cherubim.  It  is  in  these  scenes  of  super- 
natural poetry  that  the  pencil  of  Murillo,  like  the 
wand  of  an  enchanter,  produces  marvels.  If  in 
scenes  taken  from  human  life,  he  equals  the  great- 
est colorists,  he  is  alone  in  the  imaginary  scenes 
of  eternal  life.  It  might  be  said  of  the  two  great 
Spanish  masters,  that  Velasquez  is  the  painter  of 
the  earth,  and  Murillo  of  heaven." 

His  next  work  was  for  the  Augustinian  •  convent 
church,  the  "Madonna  appearing  to  St.  Augus- 
tine," and  "  St.  Augustine  and  the  little  Child  on 
the  Seashore,"  who  is  trying  to  fill  a  hole  in  the 
sand  with  water  carried  from  the  ocean  in  a  shell. 

About  this  time,  he  painted  the  exquisite  "  St. 
John  with  the  Lamb,"  now  in  the  National  Gal- 
lery, for  which  the  government  paid  ten  thousand 
dollars  ;  "  Los  Ninos  de  la  Concha,"  the  "  Children 
of  the  Shell,"  where  the  Child  Jesus  holds  the 
shell,  filled  with  water,  to  the  lips  of  St.  John, 
now  in  the  Prado  Museum  at  Madrid ;  and  "  St. 
Ildefonso  receiving  the  Chasuble  from  the  Vir- 
gin," also  at  Madrid.  This  saint  defended  the 
doctrine  of  the  Immaculate  Conception  at  a  time 
when  it  had  many  opponents.  In  token  of  her 
appreciation,  the  Virgin  came  to  his  cathedral, 


242  MURILLO. 

seated  herself  upon  his  ivory  pulpit,  and,  with 
the  angels  about  her,  chanted  a  service  from  the 
Psalter.  He  bowed  to  the  ground,  and  the  Virgin 
said,  "  Come  hither,  most  faithful  servant  of  God, 
and  receive  this  robe,  which  I  have  brought  thee 
from  the  treasury  of  my  Son."  He  knelt  before 
her,  and  she  threw  over  him  a  cassock  of  heavenly 
tissue.  The  ivory  chair  remained  thereafter  un- 
occupied, till  the  presumptuous  Archbishop  Sisi- 
berto  sat  in  it,  and  died  a  miserable  death  in  con- 
sequence. 

Besides  all  this  work,  Murillo's  various  "Beggar 
Boys  "  are  known  wherever  art  is  loved  ;  one  is  in 
the  Louvre,  "  El  Piojoso  "  ;  several,  in  the  Pinako- 
thek  at  Munich  ;  the  "  Flower-Girl  "  and  a  "  Boy 
with  a  Basket  and  Dog,"  at  the  Hermitage ;  and 
others,  in  London  and  Madrid.  The  "  Education 
of  the  Virgin,"  Mary  kneeling  by  the  side  of  St. 
Anna,  her  mother,  the  faces  portraits,  it  is  believed, 
of  his  wife  and  daughter,  is  in  the  Royal  Gallery 
at  Madrid.  Five  large  paintings  from  the  life  of 
Jacob,  "Isaac  blessing  Jacob,"  "Jacob's  Dream," 
"  Jacob  and  Laban's  Sheep,"  "  Laban  searching  for 
his  Gods  in  the  Tent  of  Rachel,"  and  one  other,  are 
in  various  galleries. 

Murillo  was  now  growing  old.  All  the  time 
which  he  could  possibly  spare  from  his  work  he 
passed  in  devotion.  He  often  visited  the  Church 
of  Santa  Cruz,  where  he  spent  hours  before  the 
altar-piece,  "The  Descent  from  the  Cross,"  by 
Pedro  Campana.  When  lingering  late  one  night. 


MUBILLO.  243 

lie  was  asked  by  the  sacristan  why  he  thus  tarried. 
He  replied :  "  I  am  waiting  till  those  men  have 
brought  the  body  of  our  blessed  Lord  down  the 
ladder." 

His  last  picture,  the  "  Marriage  of  St.  Catharine," 
was  begun  in  1680,  in  the  Capuchin  Church  at 
Cadiz,  when  he  was  sixty-two  years  of  age.  He 
had  finished  the  centre  group  of  the  Madonna  and 
Child  and  St.  Catharine,  when  he  fell  from  the 
scaffold  on  which  he  was  climbing  to  his  work, 
and  fatally  injured  himself.  Whether  this  acci- 
dent occurred  in  the  chapel  at  Cadiz,  or  in  his  own 
studio,  is  not  positively  known,  but  he  died  soon 
afterward,  at  Seville,  April  3,  1682,  in  the  arms  of 
his  friend  Canon  Neve  and  his  pupil  Pedro  Nunez 
de  Villavicencio.  His  wife  was  dead,  and  his 
daughter  had  become  a  nun  six  years  previous, 
but  his  second  son,  Gaspar,  stood  beside  the  bed  of 
death. 

He  was  buried  with  distinguished  honors,  the 
bier  being  carried  by  two  marquises  and  four 
knights,  and  followed  by  a  great  concourse  of 
people.  At  his  own  request,  he  was  buried  be- 
neath his  favorite  picture,  the  "Descent  from  the 
Cross."  His  grave  was  covered  with  a  stone  slab 
on  which  were  carved  his  name,  a  skeleton,  and  the 
words,  "Vive  inoriturus,"  "Live  as  one  who  is 
about  to  die." 

During  the  French  occupation,  the  Church  of 
Santa  Cruz  was  destroyed,  and  its  site  is  now 
occupied  by  the  Plaza  Santa  Cruz.  A  tablet  was 


244  MURILLO. 

placed  in  the  adjacent  wall  in  1858,  stating  that 
Murillo  was  buried  there.  A  bronze  statue  of  the 
painter  has  been  erected  by  the  city  of  Seville, 
near  the  Provincial  Museum. 

More  than  five  hundred  of  the  works  of  Murillo 
are  scattered  through  Europe.  Self-made,  he  left 
a  name  honored  alike  for  great  genius  and  great 
beauty  of  character.  Says  Enielyn  W.  Washburn, 
in  "  Spanish  Masters,"  "  We  shall  not  err  when  we 
say  that  Murillo  is  the  sweetest  and  richest  painter 
of  his  day.  .  .  .  He  has  a  glowing  fancy,  an  eye  for 
all  beauty  of  nature  and  life,  and  a  lofty  mind  and 
moral  purpose.  His  magic  pencil  writes  the  heart 
of  his  saints  on  the  face  ;  none  better  than  he  can 
draw  the  pure  brow  of  childhood ;  and,  above  all, 
his  conceptions  suggest  a  mystery  hidden  beneath 
the  outward  coloring. 

"  His  name  recalls  Spanish  art  in  the  noon  of  its 
glory.  There  is  in  that  series  of  great  and  small 
artists  not  one  who  has  so  won  the  heart  of  all 
time ;  none  depicts  so  much  of  that  personal 
beauty  which  gives  life  to  the  past.  We  approach 
Zurbaran  with  somewhat  of  awe ;  Velasquez  is 
the  grand  historical  painter.  But  in  Murillo  we 
see  the  mingling  of  the  two,  with  a  milder  grace. 
In  him,  we  see  the  sweet  singer  with  the  golden 
harp  strung  always  before  him,  the  man  with  all 
the  chords  of  his  fine  nature  touched  by  the  Holy 
Ghost. 

"There  is,  perhaps,  no  point  where  Murillo 
appears  in  more  winning  beauty  than  in  his  rela- 


MURILLO.  245 

tions  with  other  painters.  He  shows  the  most 
generous  soul,  the  rarest  gentleness,  a  heart  where 
the  struggles  of  youth  have  only  brought  forth 
the  richest  fruits.  We  see  the  picture  of  a  man 
too  great  for  little  hates.  His  is  a  character 
shaped  by  the  mild  spirit  of  Christ's  religion.  .  .  . 
"Murillo  stands  forth  as  a  mind  which  most 
faithfully  represents  Spanish  genius,  art,  religion  ; 
who  lived  a  Spaniard  of  the  Spaniards  in  that  bril- 
liant world ;  who  wore  the  same  long  cloak  and 
grave  dignity  as  is  now  met  with  in  the  narrow, 
dirty  lanes  of  Seville  ;  nay,  more,  who  had  a  living 
human  heart,  and  who  pondered  as  we  now  ponder 
the  problems  of  art  and  life :  who  taught  a  nation 
and  an  age." 


RUBENS. 


rpAINE  says,  in  his  "  Philosophy  of  Art  in  the 
-L  Netherlands":  "Rubens  is  to  Titian  what 
Titian  was  to  Raphael,  and  Raphael  was  to  Phid- 
ias. Never  did  artistic  sympathy  clasp  nature  in 
such  an  open  and  universal  embrace.  Ancient 
boundaries,  already  often  extended,  seem  removed 
purposely  to  expose  an  infinite  career.  He  shows 
no  respect  for  historic  proprieties :  he  groups  to- 
gether allegoric  with  real  figures,  and  cardinals 
with  a  naked  Mercury. 

"  There  is  no  deference  to  the  moral  order ;  he 
fills  the  ideal  heaven  of  mythology  and  of  the 
Gospel  with  coarse  or  mischievous  characters ;  a 
Magdalen  resembling  a  nurse,  and  a  Ceres  whis- 
pering some  pleasant  gossip  in  her  neighbor's  ear. 
There  is  no  dread  of  exciting  physical  sensibility ; 
he  pushes  the  horrible  to  extremes,  ...  all  the 
animal  instincts  of  human  nature  appear;  those 
which  had  been  excluded  as  gross  he  reproduces  as 
true,  and  in  him,  as  in  nature,  they  encounter  the 
others.  Nothing  is  wanting  but  the  pure  and  the 
noble ;  the  whole  of  human  nature  is  in  his  grasp, 
save  the  loftiest  heights.  Hence  it  is  that  this 


RUBENS. 


EUBENS.  247 

creativeness  is  the  vastest  we  have  seen,  compre- 
hending as  it  does  all  types,  Italian  cardinals, 
Roman  emperors,  contemporary  citizens,  peasants 
and  cowherds,  along  with  the  innumerable  diver- 
sities stamped  on  humanity  by  the  play  of  natural 
forces,  and  which  more  than  fifteen  hundred  pictures 
did  not  suffice  to  exhaust. 

"  For  the  same  reason,  in  the  representation  of 
the  body,  he  comprehended  more  profoundly  than 
any  one  the  essential  characteristic  of  organic  life  ; 
he  surpasses  in  this  the  Venetians  as  they  surpass 
the  Florentines ;  he  feels  still  better  than  they  that 
flesh  is  a  changeable  substance  in  a  constant  state 
of  renewal ;  and  such,  more  than  any  other,  is  the 
Flemish  body,  lymphatic,  sanguine,  and  voracious  ; 
more  fluid,  more  rapidly  tending  to  accretion  and 
waste  than  those  whose  dry  fibre  and  radical  tem- 
perance preserve  permanent  tissues. 

"  Hence  it  is  that  nobody  has  depicted  its  con- 
trasts in  stronger  relief,  nor  as  visibly  shown  the 
decay  and  bloom  of  life ;  at  one  time  the  dull, 
flabby  corpse,  a  genuine  clinical  mass,  empty  of 
blood  and  substance ;  livid,  blue,  and  mottled 
through  suffering,  a  clot  of  blood  on  the  mouth, 
the  eye  glassy,  and  the  feet  and  hands  clayish, 
swollen,  and  deformed  because  death  seized  them 
first;  at  another,  the  freshness  of  living  carna- 
tions, the  handsome,  blooming,  and  smiling  ath- 
lete, the  mellow  suppleness  of  a  yielding  torso  in 
the  form  of  a  well-fed  youth,  the  soft  rosy  cheeks 
and  placid  candor  of  a  girl  whose  blood  was  never 


248  EUBENS. 

quickened  or  eyes  bedimmed  by  thought,  flocks  of 
dimpled  cherubs  and  merry  cupids,  the  delicacy, 
the  folds,  the  exquisite  melting  rosiness  of  infan- 
tile skin,  seemingly  the  petal  of  a  flower  moistened 
with  dew  and  impregnated  with  morning  light. 

"  His  personages  speak ;  their  repose  itself  is 
suspended  on  the  verge  of  action;  we  feel  what 
they  have  just  accomplished,  and  what  they  are 
about  to  do.  The  present  with  them  is  impreg- 
nated with  the  past  and  big  with  the  future  ;  not 
only  the  whole  face,  but  the  entire  attitude  con- 
spires to  manifest  the  flowing  stream  of  their 
thought,  feeling,  and  complete  being ;  we  hear  the 
inward  utterance  of  their  emotion ;  we  might  re- 
peat the  words  to  which  they  give  expression. 
The  most  fleeting  and  most  subtle  shades  of  senti- 
ment belong  to  Rubens ;  in  this  respect  he  is  a 
treasure  for  novelist  and  psychologist;  he  took 
note  of  the  passing  refinements  of  moral  expression 
as  well  as  of  the  soft  volume  of  sanguine  flesh ;  no 
one  has  gone  beyond  him  in  knowledge  of  the 
living  organism  and  of  the  animal  man.  .  .  . 

"  There  is  only  one  Rubens  in  Flanders,  as  there 
is  only  one  Shakespeare  in  England.  Great  as  the 
others  are,  they  are  deficient  in  some  one  element 
of  his  genius." 

This  great  painter,  Peter  Paul  Rubens,  whom 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  called  "the  best  workman 
with  his  tools  that  ever  managed  a  pencil,"  was 
born  at  Siegen,  June  29,  1577,  on  the  day  com- 
memorating the  martyrdom  of  these  saints  at 


RUBENS.  249 

Rome,  hence  the  names  given  to  the  child.  Ant- 
werp and  Cologne  have  claimed  his  birth,  but 
subsequent  historical  investigation  has  shown 
Siegen  as  his  birthplace.  Jans  Rubens,  the  father 
of  Peter,  was  a  distinguished  councilman  and 
alderman  of  Antwerp,  having  taken  his  degree  of 
Doctor  of  Laws  at  Rome  when  he  was  thirty-one. 
When  he  was  about  that  age  he  married  Marie 
Pypelincx,  a  woman  of  good  family,  unusual  force 
of  character,  and  the  idol  of  her  sou  Peter  as  long 
as  she  lived. 

Antwerp  was  now  the  scene  of  a  desolating  war. 
Charles  V.,  Emperor  of  Germany  and  King  of 
Spain,  had  abdicated,  leaving  the  Netherlands  to 
his  son  Philip  II.  Religious  dissensions,  the 
presence  of  Spanish  soldiers,  and  other  matters, 
led  to  revolts,  which  the  Duke  of  Alva,  with  twenty 
thousand  soldiers,  was  sent  to  suppress  in  1576. 
Seven  thousand  of  the  people  of  Antwerp  were 
slain,  and  five  hundred  houses  burned. 

Jans  Rubens  had  been  accused  of  Calvinistic 
tendencies,  and  thought  it  prudent  to  retire  to  Co- 
logne before  the  arrival  at  Antwerp  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Duke  of  Alva,  placing  himself  on  the 
side  of  Prince  William  of  Orange,  the  Silent,  who 
had  married  Annie  of  Saxony.  She  had  quarrelled 
with  her  husband,  had  come  to  Cologne,  and  had 
employed  Jans  Rubens  as  one  of  her  counsellors  in 
obtaining  her  property,  which  Philip  II.  had  con- 
fiscated. Forgetting  his  high  position  and  his 
family,  Jans  Rubens  sacrificed  his  good  name  and 


250  BUB  ENS. 

character  by  his  immorality,  was  arrested  and 
thrown  into  prison  by  Count  John  of  Nassau,  the 
brother  of  Prince  William,  and  Annie  was  divorced 
by  her  husband.  By  German  law  Rubens  was 
under  the  penalty  of  death.  He  wrote  to  his  wife, 
confessing  his  guilt  and  imploring  her  pardon. 
She  determined  at  once  to  save  his  life,  if  possible. 
The  noble-hearted  woman  wrote  him  tenderly  — 
only  great  souls  know  how  to  forgive,  — 

"How  could  I  push  severity  to  the  point  of 
paining  you  when  you  are  in  such  affliction  that 
I  would  give  my  life  to  relieve  you  from  it  ? 
Even  had  this  misfortune  not  been  preceded  by  a 
long  affection,  ought  I  to  show  so  much  hatred  as 
not  to  be  able  to  pardon  a  faiilt  against  me  ?  .  .  . 
Be,  then,  assured  that  I  have  entirely  forgiven  you, 
and  would  to  Heaven  that  your  deliverance  de- 
pended on  this,  for  then  we  should  soon  be  happy 
again. 

"  Alas  !  it  is  not  what  your  letter  announces  that 
affects  me.  I  could  scarcely  read  it.  I  thought  my 
heart  would  break.  I  am  so  distressed,  I  hardly 
know  what  I  write.  This  sad  news  so  overwhelms 
me  it  is  with  difficulty  I  can  bear  it.  If  there  is  no 
more  pity  in  this  world,  to  whom  shall  I  apply  ?  I 
will  implore  Heaven  with  tears  and  groans,  and 
hope  that  God  will  grant  my  prayer  by  touching 
the  hearts  of  these  gentlemen,  so  that  they  may 
spare  us,  may  have  compassion  on  us ;  otherwise, 
they  will  kill  me  as  well  as  you,  my  soul  is  so  linked 
to  yours  that  you  cannot  suffer  a  pain  without  my 


RUBENS.  251 

suffering  as  much  as  you.  I  believe  that  if  these 
good  lords  saw  my  tears  they  would  have  pity  011 
me,  even  if  they  were  of  stone ;  and,  when  all 
other  means  fail,  I  will  go  to  them,  although  you 
write  me  not  to  do  so." 

Marie  could  not  reach  William  the  Silent,  for  he 
was  away  in  the  country,  consolidating  the  Dutch 
Republic ;  but  she  visited  in  person  his  mother, 
and  his  brother,  Count  John.  All  her  entreaties 
availed  nothing.  It  was  publicly  stated  that  Jans 
Eubens  had  been  imprisoned  for  political  treason 
to  Prince  William,  and  must  suffer  death.  Marie 
was  forbidden  access  to  any  of  William's  family, 
and  for  two  years  was  not  allowed  to  enter  the  dun- 
geon where  her  husband  was  confined. 

At  length  she  declared  that  the  whole  truth 
should  be  told,  and  Annie  of  Saxony  be  forever 
disgraced.  This  threat  moved  the  proud  Orange 
family,  and  procured  the  release  of  Jans  Rubens, 
under  bonds  of  six  thousand  thalers,  that  he  would 
never  go  outside  the  little  town  of  Siegen.  Here 
he  lived  for  some  years,  broken  in  health  by  his 
prison  life,  and  under  the  strict  surveillance  of 
Count  John.  Finally,  Marie  obtained  permission 
for  them  to  reside  in  Cologne,  where  he  died  in 
1587,  when  his  boy  Peter  was  ten  years  of  age. 

The  next  year  Marie  Rubens  returned  to  their 
old  home  at  Antwerp,  and  by  her  good  sense  and 
persistence  recovered  the  estates  of  her  husband, 
which  had  been  confiscated  during  the  wars,  thus 
placing  her  family  in  very  comfortable  circum- 


252  RUBENS. 

stances.  Peter  entered  a  Jesuits'  college,  where 
lie  showed,  great  aptitude  for  languages.  In  child- 
hood he  had  been  taught  Latin  by  his  father,  and 
French  by  a  tutor.  Later,  he  learned  Italian, 
Spanish,  German,  and  English,  besides,  of  course, 
speaking  his  native  Flemish.  His  mother  had 
destined  him  for  the  law,  but  it  was  distasteful 
to  him. 

At  the  age  of  thirteen,  as  was  often  the  custom, 
the  frank  and  handsome  boy  was  made  a  page  in 
the  household  of  his  godmother,  the  Countess  La- 
laing,  but  he  took  no  pleasure  in  mere  fashionable 
surroundings,  and  begged  his  mother  that  he  might 
become  an  artist. 

This  choice  did  not  attract  the  mother,  whose 
ambitions  and  hopes  centred  largely  in  her  enthu- 
siastic Peter,  but  she  had  the  wisdom  to  lead  rather 
than  to  dictate.  Parents  who  break  the  wills  of 
their  children  usually  have  spoiled  children  as  the 
result. 

She  placed  her  boy  with  Tobias  Verhaeght,  a 
landscape  painter,  from  whom  the  lad  learned  that 
close  study  of  nature  which  made  him  there- 
after a  reader  of  her  secrets.  Conrad  Busken 
Huet  says,  in  his  "  Land  of  Rubens  "  :  "  Man  and 
nature  as  the  Creator  made  them  were  quite  suf- 
ficient for  Rubens's  inspiration,  no  matter  where 
he  found  them,  far  from  home  or  close  to  it.  What 
attracted  him  most  in  nature  was  the  unchangeable, 
the  imperishable,  and  the  grand.  He  knew  how 
to  find  these  everywhere.  Artists  less  gifted  and 


RUBENS.  253 

born  by  the  seashore  have  before  now  felt  the  want 
of  sniffing  the  mountain  breeze.  Did  their  cradle 
stand  among  the  meadows,  they  longed  for  running 
streams  and  rivers.  Rubens's  pictures  prove  that 
such  contrasts  had  no  value  for  him. 

"  Within  the  narrow  limits  of  his  native  soil,  he 
found  every  condition  necessary  to  the  practice  of 
his  art.  His  imagination  had  no  need  of  anything 
more  stirring  than  that  presented  to  him  by  the 
recollection  of  human  vicissitudes  amidst  glebe  and 
glade.  The  twinkling  of  the  eye  sufficed  to  trans- 
form them  into  battlefields  in  his  productions.  .  .  . 

"•When  the  sun  shines,  he  shines  everywhere. 
Such  is  Rubens's  motto.  He  knows  but  one  moon, 
but  one  starry  vault,  but  one  gloaming,  but  one 
morning  dew.  Every  raindrop  on  which  there  falls 
a  ray  of  light  reminds  him  of  a  diamond.  Each 
stubble-field  whence  uprises  the  lark  supplies  mu- 
sic to  his  ears.  Each  swan  to  which  he  flings 
bread-crumbs  on  his  arrival  at  '  Steen '  (his  country 
home)  teaches  him  to  keep  the  most  sublime  song 
of  his  art  for  the  end." 

"  It  is  curious  to  note  that  Rubens,"  says  Charles 
W.  Kett,  in  his  "  Life  of  Rubens,"  "  who  began 
with  scenes  of  country  life,  returned  in  his  last 
days  to  his  first  love,  so  that  when  he  could  no 
longer  cover  his  huge  canvases  with  heroic  figures, 
he  would  retire  to  his  chateau  at  Steen,  and  paint 
landscapes,  even  though  the  gout  almost  incapaci- 
tated him  from  holding  his  brushes." 

After   about   ten  years   spent   with  Verhaeght, 


254  EUBENS. 

young  Rubens,  thinking  that  he  would  devote  him- 
self to  historical  subjects,  became  a  pupil  of  Adam 
van  Noort,  a  teacher  skilled  in  drawing,  and  in  the 
use  of  brilliant  color,  with  study  of  light  and  shade. 
He  is  said  to  have  been  intemperate  and  quick-tem- 
pered, but  for  four  years  Rubens  found  him  a  use- 
ful teacher. 

"It  is  related,"  says  George  H.  Calvert,  "that 
one  day,  when  the  master  was  absent,  the  pupil 
took  a  fresh  canvas  to  try  what  he  could  do  by 
himself  towards  representing  a  weeping  Madonna. 
He  worked  for  hours,  and  so  intently  that  he  did 
not  hear  the  returning  footsteps  of  the  master,  who 
from  behind  gazed  in  admiration  and  wonder  at 
his  performance." 

The  young  painter  was  restless,  not  an  unnatural 
condition  for  an  ardent,  ambitious  boy  or  girl. 
Such  a  life,  fruitful  for  good  or  evil,  must  be  filled 
with  the  best  activities. 

When  Rubens  was  nineteen,  he  entered  the  stu- 
dio of  Otto  Venius,  a  kind  and  learned  man,  of 
courtly  manners,  a  free-master  of  the  Guild  of  St. 
Luke,  and  court  painter  to  Archduke  Albert  of 
Austria  and  the  Infanta  Isabella  of  Spain.  She 
was  the  daughter  of  Philip  II.,  to  whom  he  had 
ceded  the  "  Spanish  Netherlands."  They  were 
distinguished  patrons  of  art,  and  did  everything  to 
restore  the  war-worn  country  to  peace  and  prosper- 
ity. Venius  became  deeply  attached  to  his  pupil, 
made  him  acquainted  with  the  Regents  Albert  and 
Isabella,  and  inspired  him  to  go  to  Italy  to  study 


HUBENS.  255 

art,  the  country  in  which  he  had  studied  for  seven 
years. 

Rubens  had  already  painted  some  admirable 
works :  the  "  Adoration  of  the  Three  Kings,"  a 
"  Holy  Trinity,"  a  "  Dead  Christ  in  the  Arms  of 
the  Father,"  and  a  portrait  of  Marie  Pypeliucx, 
"the  true-hearted  wife,"  says  Mr.  Kett,  "of  the 
faithless  Jans,  the  mother  of  the  artist,  the  up- 
holder of  the  family  after  the  death  of  the  father, 
the  educator  of  his  children,  and  the  restorer  of  the 
fallen  greatness  of  the  name  of  Rubens.  Calmly 
and  beautifully  does  the  pale  face  still  look  forth 
from  the  canvas  as  of  old.  She  must  have  smiled 
with  satisfaction  on  the  rising  fame  of  her  youngest 
surviving  son,  now  going  forth  into  the  world  to 
have  those  talents  acknowledged  which  her  mater- 
nal heart  was  assured  were  in  his  keeping.  Care- 
fully attired,  like  a  matron  of  good  family,  in 
velvet  dress,  mourning  coif,  and  muslin  cuffs,  de- 
noting her  widowed  state,  she  carries  in  her  face 
the  traits  of  a  shrewd  woman  of  the  world,  who 
has  battled  bravely  with  the  times,  and  now  sees 
victory  crowning  her  endeavors. 

"  Her  very  chair,  somewhat  similar  to  the  one 
still  preserved  in  the  Academy  at  Antwerp  as  the 
gift  of  her  son,  speaks  of  a  home  of  comfort;  her 
book,  held  in  her  still  handsome  hand,  a  forefinger 
marking  the  page  she  has  not  finished  reading,  tells 
of  a  certain  amount  of  learned  leisure  ;  and  her 
whole  surroundings  recall  a  home  whence  an  artist, 
a  man  of  culture,  and  a  courteous  gentleman  might 


256  RUBENS. 

derive  those  early  impressions  and  first  inspira- 
tions which  would  develop,  when  he  came  in  con- 
tact with  a  larger  world,  into  masterpieces  of  art." 

On  May  8,  1600,  Kubens,  at  twenty-three  years 
of  age,  having  said  good-by  to  his  fond  mother, 
started  for  Italy.  His  first  visit  was  to  Venice, 
where  he  studied  the  wonderful  colorists,  Titian, 
Paul  Veronese,  and  Tintoretto.  He  is  said  to  have 
copied  twenty  portraits  by  Titian,  so  earnest  was 
he  in  obtaining  the  secret  of  these  marvellous 
tints. 

While  here  he  became  the  friend  of  a  Mantuan, 
an  officer  at  the  court  of  Vincenzo  de  Gonzaga. 
Duke  of  Mantua.  This  duke  was  thirty-seven  years 
old,  rich,  handsome,  somewhat  of  a  poet,  the  patron 
of  artists  and  authors,  a  brilliant  and  extravagant 
ruler.  Through  this  friend,  and  also  by  letters  of 
introduction  from  Archduke  Albert,  Kubens  met 
Gonzaga,  who  was  surprised  at  the  learning  of  the 
attractive  and  distinguished-appearing  young  ar- 
tist. Hearing  him  repeat  a  passage  from  Virgil, 
Gonzaga  addressed  him  in  Latin,  and  was  answered 
in  the  same  language,  fluently  and  correctly.'  The 
duke  had  made  a  fine  collection  of  paintings  and 
antiques,  and  these  Rubens  was  glad  to  study.  A 
most  fortunate  thing  resulted  from  this  acquaint- 
ance ;  Rubens  was  appointed  painter  to  the  court 
and  a  member  of  the  ducal  household. 

This  was  not  the  result  merely  of  fortuitous  cir- 
cumstances. Rubens  had  been  a  student.  He  was 
called  later  by  scholars,  athe  antiquary  and  Apelles 


RUBENS.  257 

of  our  time.*'  He  was  also  a  most  industrious 
worker.  Philip  Rubens,  his  nephew,  says  in  his 
life  of  his  uncle,  "  He  never  gave  himself  the 
pastime  of  going  to  parties  where  there  was  drink- 
ing and  card-playing,  having  always  had  a  dislike 
for  such."  So  fond  was  he  of  reading  the  best 
books,  that  in  after  years,  when  he  painted,  Seneca 
and  Plutarch  were  often  read  to  him.  He  had 
studied  the  technique  of  painting  since  he  was 
thirteen  years  old.  He  was  especially  charming  in 
manner,  being  free  from  harshness  or  censorious- 
ness,  and,  withal,  a  person  of  much  tact  and  con- 
sideration. He  had  prepared  himself  for  a  great 
work,  and  was  ready  to  embrace  his  opportunity 
when  it  came. 

Besides  painting  several  originals  for  the  Duke 
of  Mantua,  Rubens  was  sent  to  Rome  to  make 
copies  of  some  of  the  masterpieces.  He  took 
letters  of  introduction  to  Cardinal  Alessandro 
Montalto,  the  nephew  of  Sixtus  V.,  very  rich,  and 
a  great  patron  of  art. 

Besides  this  work  for  Gonzaga,  Rubens  painted 
for  the  chapel  of  St.  Helena,  in  the  Church  of  the 
Holy  Cross  of  Jerusalem,  at  Rome,  at  the  request 
of  Archduke  Albert,  formerly  its  cardinal,  three 
pictures  :  "  St.  Helena  embracing  the  Cross," 
'•'  Christ  crowned  with  Thorns,"  and  a  "  Cruci- 
fixion." 

On  his  return  to  Mantua,  he  copied  the  "Triumph 
of  Julius  Caesar,"  by  Andrea  Mantegna ;  in  one  of 
the  series,  in  place  of  a  sheep  walking  by  the  side 


258  RUBENS. 

of  an  elephant,  he  painted  a  lion.  Dr.  Waagen  says 
in  his  "  Life  of  Rubens  "  :  "  His  love  of  the  fan- 
tastic and  pompous  led  him  to  choose  that  with  the 
elephant  carrying  the  candelabra,  but  his  ardent 
imagination,  ever  directed  to  the  dramatic,  could 
not  be  content  with  this;  instead  of  a  harmless 
shsep,  which  in  Mantegna  is  walking  by  the  side 
of  the  foremost  elephant,  Rubens  has  introduced  a 
lion  and  lioness,  which  growl  angrily  at  the  ele- 
phant. The  latter,  on  his  part,  is  not  idle,  but, 
looking  furiously  round,  is  on  the  point  of  strik- 
ing the  lion  a  blow  with  his  trunk.  The  severe 
pattern  he  had  before  him  in  Mantegna  has  mod- 
erated Rubens  in  his  taste  for  very  full  forms,  so 
that  they  are  here  more  noble  and  slender  than  is 
usual  with  him.  The  coloring,  as  in  his  earliest 
pictures,  is  more  subdued  than  in  the  later,  and 
yet  more  powerful.  Rubens  himself  seems  to  have 
set  a  high  value  upon  this  study,  for  it  was  among 
his  effects  at  his  death." 

In  1603,  Rubens  was  sent  by  the  Duke  of 
Mantua  on  a  pleasant  mission  to  Spain,  with 
costly  presents  to  Philip  III.,  the  indolent  son  of 
Philip  II.,  and  his  powerful  favorite,  the  Duke  of 
Lerma.  For  the  king  there  was  a  "  gorgeous  coach 
and  seven  beautiful  horses,  twelve  arquebuses,  six 
of  whalebone  and  six  variegated,  and  a  vase  of 
rock  crystal  filled  with  perfumes."  For  the  Duke 
of  Lerma,  "  a  number  of  pictures,  a  silver  vase  of 
large  dimensions  inwrought  with  colors,  and  two 
vases  of  gold.  For  the  Countess  of  Lerma,  a  cross 


RUBENS.  259 

and  two  candelabra  of  rich  crystal.  For  the  secre- 
tary, Pedro  Franqueza,  two  vases  of  rock  crystal, 
and  a  complete  set  of  damask  hangings,  the  edges 
of  gold  tissue." 

After  a  long  journey,  with  continuous  rain  for 
twenty-five  days,  Rubens  and  his  gifts  reached 
Valladolid.  When  the  paintings  were  unpacked, 
they  were  nearly  ruined,  from  the  colors  having 
peeled  off.  At  the  request  of  Iberti,  resident  at 
the  Court  of  Madrid  from  Mantua,  Kubens  under- 
took the  work  of  restoration,  and,  better  still, 
painted  two  originals  for  the  Duke  of  Lerma,  a 
"  Democritus,"  and  a  "Heraclitus,"  both  life-size, 
now  in  the  gallery  of  Madrid.  He  also  painted  an 
equestrian  likeness  of  the  duke  himself,  several 
ladies  of  the  court,  for  the  gallery  of  beauties  pos- 
sessed by  Gonzaga,  and  probably  many  other  pic- 
tures on  this  first  visit,  as  more  than  one  hundred 
and  twenty  of  Kubens's  paintings  are  known  to 
have  existed  in  Spain.  On  his  return  to  Italy  he 
was  loaded  with  gifts  from  the  King  of  Spain  and 
grandees,  so  much  were  his  works  esteemed  and 
so  greatly  was  the  young  Fleming  admired.  Once 
more  in  Italy,  Rubens  painted  an  altar-piece  for 
the  Church  of  the  Holy  Trinity  at  Mantua,  in 
which  the  mother  of  the  duke  was  buried;  three 
pictures,  the  "  Baptism  of  our  Saviour,"  the 
"  Mystery  of  the  Transfiguration,"  and  a  central 
picture,  the  "  Mystery  of  the  Trinity,"  which  lat- 
ter contained  portraits  of  Duke  Vincenzo,  his 
Duchess  Leonora,  his  parents,  and  his  children. 


260  RUBENS. 

When  the  French  took  Mantua  in  1797,  this 
church  was  used  as  a  storehouse  for  food  for  the 
horses.  A  French  commissary  cut  this  picture  in 
pieces,  the  better  to  carry  it,  and,  when  about  to 
send  it  to  France,  was  prevented  by  the  Academy 
of  Mantua.  Some  of  the  pieces  have  disappeared. 

Rubens  also  painted,  for  the  Church  of  Santa 
Maria  in  Valicella,  Rome,  an  altar-piece,  represent- 
ing the  "  Madonna  and  Child,"  with  side  pictures 
of  the  pope  and  several  saints.  In  co-operation 
with  his  brother  Philip,  he  published,  in  1608,  a 
book  on  Roman  antiquities,  with  six  copper-plate 
illustrations.  The  pope  was  so  pleased  with  Rubens 
that  he  desired  to  keep  him  in  Rome  permanently. 

For  the  Grand  Duke  Ferdinand  I.  of  Florence, 
Rubens  painted  several  pictures,  among  them  a 
"  Hercules  between  Venus  and  Minerva."  In 
Spain  he  executed  a  series  called  "  The  Labors  of 
Hercules,"  besides  three  separate  ones,  represent- 
ing the  slaying  of  the  dragon,  the  struggle  with 
Antaeus,  and  the  combat  with  a  lion.  He  also 
copied  the  celebrated  cartoon  of  Leonardo  da 
Vinci,  called  "The  Battle  of  the  Standard,"  and 
made  a  valuable  portrait  of  himself  for  the  Grand 
Ducal  collection  of  self-painted  heads  of  artists. 
At  Genoa  he  made  drawings  of  her  remarkable 
palaces  and  churches,  which  he  published  later  in 
a  volume  with  one  hundred  and  thirty -nine  illus- 
trations. 

After  an  absence  of  eight  years  in  Italy,  Rubens 
was  recalled  to  Antwerp  by  the  illness  of  his 


BUS  ENS.  261 

mother.  He  started  homeward  October  28,  1608, 
with  a  heavy  heart.  On  his  way  he  learned  that 
she  had  died  nine  days  before  he  began  his  long 
journey. 

On  reaching  Antwerp,  he  shut  himself  up  for 
four  months  in  the  Abbey  of  St.  Michael's,  where 
she  had  been  buried.  He  had  given  her  no  ordi- 
nary affection,  and  his  was  no  ordinary  loss.  He 
met  this  loss  in  the  silence  of  his  own  thoughts  in 
the  abbey,  and  when  he  had  gained  the  self-control 
necessary  for  his  work,  he  came  out  into  the  world. 
Most  of  us  learn  to  bear  our  sorrows  in  our  own 
hearts,  without  laying  our  burdens  upon  others, 
finding,  sooner  or  later,  that  the  world  has  enough 
of  its  own. 

He  talked  of  returning  to  Italy,  but  Archduke 
Albert  and  Isabella,  proud  of  his  genius  and  his 
attainments,  invited  him  to  court,  sat  for  their 
portraits,  and  made  him  their  official  painter.  One 
of  his  first  works  for  them  was  a  "  Holy  Family," 
which  was  so  much  admired  that  the  Society  of 
St.  Ildefonso  of  Brussels,  Archduke  Albert  being 
its  head,  ordered  an  altar-piece  for  the  Chapel  of 
the  order  of  St.  James.  "  This  picture,"  says  Dr. 
Waagen,  "which  is  at  present  in  the  Imperial 
gallery  at  Vienna,  represents  the  Virgin  Mary  en- 
throned, and  putting  the  cloak  of  the  order  on  the 
shoulders  of  St.  Ildefonso.  She  is  surrounded  by 
four  female  saints.  On  the  interior  of  the  wings 
are  the  portraits  of  Albert  and  Isabella,  with  their 
patron  saints.  This  work,  one  of  the  most  admira- 


262  RUBENS. 

ble  ever  painted  by  Kubens,  displays  in  a  remarka- 
ble degree  the  qualities  praised  in  the  one  painted 
for  the  Archduke." 

The  association  were  so  pleased  that  they  offered 
the  artist  a  purse  of  gold,  which,  having  been  made 
a  member,  he  would  not  receive,  saying  that  his 
only  desire  was  to  be  useful  to  his  brother  mem- 
bers. 

Lonely  from  the  death  of  his  mother,  a  new 
affection  came  into  his  heart  to  sustain  and  con- 
sole him.  Philip,  his  brother,  now  secretary  of 
Antwerp,  had  taken  as  his  wife  Maria  de  Moy, 
whose  sister,  Clara,  much  older,  had  married  a 
former  secretary  of  Antwerp.  Jan  Brandt.  Their 
daughter,  Isabella  Brandt,  was  a  young  woman  of 
attractive  face  and  sweet  disposition.  Peter  nat- 
urally met  the  niece  of  his  brother  Philip's  wife, 
loved  her,  and  married  her  October  13,  1609,  in  the 
Abbey  Church  of  St.  Michael,  when  he  was  thirty- 
two. 

He  soon  built  a  house,  costing  sixty  thousand 
florins,  in  the  Italian  style  of  architecture,  with  a 
spacious  studio,  and  a  separate  building  or  rotunda, 
like  the  Pantheon  at  Rome,  lighted  from  the  top, 
where  he  arranged  the  pictures,  marbles,  vases,  and 
gems  which  he  had  collected  in  Italy.  Adjoining 
this  he  laid  out  a  large  garden,  planted  with  flowers 
and  choice  trees. 

"  The  celebrated  picture  of  Rubens  and  his  first 
wife,"  says  Mr.  Kett,  "  now  in  the  Pinakothek  at 
Munich,  must  have  been  painted  within  the  first 


RUBENS.  263 

few  years  of  their  married  life,  and  is  a  striking 
example  of  the  painter's  manner  at  this  period. 
His  calm  serenity  and  thoughtful  expression,  com- 
bined with  beauty  and  force  of  character,  are  well 
balanced  by  the  placid  contentment  and  happy 
dignity  of  his  wife,  as  the  pair  sit  under  their  own 
vine  and  fig-tree,  prepared  to  receive  their  visitors. 
There  is  no  affected  demonstration  of  feeling,  no 
bashful  restraint.  A  couple  well-to-do  and  able  to 
enjoy  themselves  are  happy  to  share  their  pleasure 
with  others." 

In  1611,  Rubens  met  with  a  severe  loss  in  the 
death  of  his  greatly  beloved  brother,  Philip.  All 
the  seven  children  of  Jans  Rubens  and  Maria 
Pypelincx  were  now  dead  save  Peter  Paul. 

In  1614,  Rubens's  heart  was  made  glad  by  the 
birth  of  a  son,  to  whom  Archduke  Albert  became 
godfather,  and  gave  him  his  own  name.  Four 
years  later  his  only  other  child  by  Isabella  Brandt 
was  born,  both  of  whom  survived  their  father.  A 
beautiful  painting  of  these  two  children  is  now  in 
the  Liechtenstein  Gallery,  in  Vienna. 

The  rich  and  famous  painter  was  now  happy, 
surrounded  by  his  loved  ones,  busy  constantly  with 
his  work,  which  poured  in  upon  him.  In  summer 
he  rose  at  four  o'clock,  heard  mass,  and  went  to 
work  early.  Says  Dr.  Waagen,  "This  was  the 
time  when  he  generally  received  his  visitors,  with 
whom  he  entered  willingly  into  conversation  on  a 
variety  of  topics,  in  the  most  animated  and  agree- 
able manner.  An  hour  before  dinner  he  always 


264  RUBENS. 

devoted  to  recreation,  which  consisted  either  in 
allowing  his  thoughts  to  dwell  as  they  listed  on 
subjects  connected  with  science  or  politics,  which 
latter  interested  him  deeply,  or  in  contemplating 
his  treasures  of  art.  From  anxiety  not  to  impair 
the  brilliant  play  of  his  fancy,  he  indulged  but 
sparingly  in  the  pleasures  of  the  table,  and  drank 
but  little  wine.  After  working  again  till  the 
evening,  he  usually,  if  not  prevented  by  business, 
mounted  a  spirited  Andalusian  horse,  and  rode  for 
an  hour  or  two. 

"  This  was  his  favorite  exercise ;  he  was  ex- 
tremely fond  of  horses,  and  his  stables  generally 
contained  some  of  remarkable  beauty.  On  his  re- 
turn home,  it  was  his  custom  to  receive  a  few 
friends,  principally  men  of  learning  or  artists, 
with  whom  he  shared  his  frugal  meal,  and  after- 
wards passed  the  evening  in  instructive  and  cheer- 
ful conversation.  This  active  and  regular  mode  of 
life  could  alone  have  enabled  Rubens  to  satisfy  all 
the  demands  that  were  made  upon  him  as  an  artist, 
and  the  astonishing  number  of  works  that  he  com- 
pleted, the  genuineness  of  which  is  beyond  all 
doubt,  can  only  be  accounted  for  by  this  union  of 
extraordinary  diligence  with  his  unusually  fertile 
powers  of  production." 

In  building  his  home,  Rubens  encroached  a  little 
on  land  owned  by  the  Company  of  Arquebusiers 
of  Antwerp.  A  lawsuit  was  threatened,  but  finally 
a  compromise  was  effected  whereby  Rubens  agreed 
to  paint  a  triptych,  that  is,  a  picture  in  three  parts, 


RUBENS.  265 

of  their  patron  St.  Christopher,  to  be  hung  in  the 
cathedral.  In  fulfilment  of  this  contract,  he 
painted  the  renowned  "Descent  from  the  Cross," 
now  in  the  south  end  of  the  transept  of  the  cathe- 
dral, with  St.  Simon  on  one  wing  of  the  triptych, 
and  "  The  Visitation "  on  the  other,  with  St. 
Christopher  in  person. 

Says  Huet :  "Playing  upon  the  name  of  a  patron 
saint,  he  has  represented  a  threefold  'bearing  of 
Christ ' ;  Christ  borne  from  the  Cross  in  the  centre  ; 
Christ  borne  by  old  Simon  on  the  right ;  Christ 
borne  '  'neath  his  mother's  heart '  on  the  left  wing. 
.  .  .  There  is  no  need  to  insist  as  to  how  Rubens 
acquitted  himself  of  his  task  in  the  centre  piece. 
Da  VTinci's  '  Last  Supper '  and  Rubens's  '  Descent 
from  the  Cross'  are  the  two  most  popular  altar- 
pieces  of  Christianity,  admired  alike  by  Protestant 
and  Catholic.  For  the  history  of  Flemish  art  this 
'  Descent '  possesses  as  much  value  as  does  Goethe's 
'  Faust '  for  the  history  of  German  literature.  No 
one  has  succeeded  in  painting  subsequent  to  Rubens 
a  '  Descent  from  the  Cross  '  without  paying  toll  to 
the  master.  ...  It  is  the  triumph  of  human  sym- 
pathy expressed  in  accordance  with  the  theory  of 
line  and  color.  The  painter  had  no  other  aim 
than  to  limn  a  perfect  group  of  loving  people, 
occupied  in  taking  down  the  body  of  Christ.  He 
does  not  portray  your  sorrow,  but  theirs.  What 
he  tenders  us  is  sentiment,  not  sentimentality; 
emotion,  not  intellect.  The  allusion  to  St.  Chris- 
topher must  be  disinterred  from  encyclopaedias  ; 


266  RUBENS. 

the  recollection  of  John  in  his  red  cloak,  carrying 
his  burden,  of  the  fair-haired  Mary  Magdalen,  of 
the  disciple  with  the  winding-sheet  betwixt  his 
teeth,  has  become  immortal. 

"  The  lovely  mother-virgin  of  the  left-hand  side 
leaf  deserves  particular  attention.  ...  I  know  of 
no  more  fascinating  female  figure  from  Rubens's 
brush ;  none  which  in  its  Flemish  guise  is  so 
original,  so  wholly  his.  The  'Descent  from  the 
Cross '  itself  one  might  still  believe  to  be  the 
work  of  one  of  the  great  Italians.  Xo  such  mis- 
take is  possible  with  the  side  leaf.  What  excites 
our  wonder  in  Goethe  is  his  succeeding  in  raising 
a  Leipzig  girl  of  the  lower  classes  to  the  rank  of  a 
tragic  heroine,  the  very  mention  of  whose  name 
suffices  to  remind  us  of  an  imperishable  type. 
Rubens's  pregnant  Mary  is  an  honorable  Gretchen. 
He  created  her  out  of  the  most  hidden  depths  of 
human  nature,  where  blood  and  soul,  mind  and 
matter,  melt  into  one.  When  Jordaens  wishes  to 
paint  fertility,  he  resorts  to  the  allegory  of  the 
schools.  To  Rubens  life  itself  is  the  best  of  all 
allegories.  Mary's  clinging  for  support  to  the  rail- 
ing of  the  staircase,  as  she  ascends  it,  is  a  hymn  in 
honor  of  maternity.  In  the  course  of  ages  pic- 
torial art  has  produced  many  beautiful  works, 
none  more  beautiful  than  that  scene." 

About  this  time  Rubens  painted  some  of  his 
greatest  works.  "  Our  Saviour  giving  the  Keys  to 
St.  Peter  "  was  originally  placed  in  the  Cathedral 
of  St.  Gudule ;  it  was  sold  in  1824  to  the  Prince  of 


RUBENS.  267 

Orange,  for  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  thousand 
dollars.  An  "  Elevation  of  the  Cross,"  an  immense 
picture,  executed  for  the  Church  of  St.  Walburg, 
at  Antwerp,  is  now  in  the  north  transept  of  the 
cathedral.  He  painted  an  "  Adoration  of  the 
Magi "  for  the  choir  of  the  Abbey  Church  of  St. 
Michael,  dear  to  him  from  the  burial  of  his  mother 
and  his  own  marriage,  and  a  similar  picture  for  the 
Church  of  St.  John  at  Malines. 

Of  an  "  Adoration  of  the  Magi "  in  the  Museum 
at  Antwerp,  Eugene  Fromentin  says :  "  It  is  truly 
a  tour  de  force,  especially  if  one  recalls  the  rapidity 
of  this  work  of  improvisation.  Not  a  gap,  not  a 
strain;  a  vast,  clear  half-tint  and  lights  without 
excess  envelop  all  the  figures,  supporting  one  the 
other ;  all  the  colors  are  visible  and  multiply 
values  the  most  rare,  the  least  sought  and  yet  the 
most  fit,  the  most  subtle  and  yet  the  most  distinct. 
By  the  side  of  types  that  are  very  ugly  swarm 
superior  types.  With  his  square  face,  his  thick 
lips,  his  reddish  skin,  big  eyes  strongly  lighted  up, 
and  his  stout  body  girt  in  green  pelisse  with  sleeves 
of  peacock  blue,  this  African  among  the  Magi  is  a 
figure  entirely  new,  before  which,  assuredly,  Tin- 
toretto, Titian,  Veronese  would  have  clapped  their 
hands. 

"On  the  left  stand  in  dignified  solemnity  two 
colossal  cavaliers  of  a  singular  Anglo-Flemish 
style,  the  most  extraordinary  piece  of  color  in  the 
picture,  with  its  dull  harmony  of  black,  greenish 
blue,  of  brown  and  white.  Add  the  profile  of  the 


268  RUBENS. 

Nubian  camel-drivers,  the  supernumeraries,  men  in 
helmets,  negroes,  the  whole  in  the  most  ample,  the 
most  transparent,  the  most  natural  of  atmospheres. 
Spider-webs  float  in  the  framework,  and  quite  low 
down  the  head  of  the  ox,  —  a  sketch  achieved  by 
a  few  strokes  of  the  brush  in  bitumen,  —  without 
more  importance  and  not  otherwise  executed  than 
would  be  a  hasty  signature.  The  Child  is  deli- 
cious ;  to  be  cited  as  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
among  the  purely  picturesque  compositions  of 
Rubens,  the  last  word  of  his  knowledge  as  to  color, 
of  his  skill  as  to  technique,  when  his  sight  was  clear 
and  instantaneous,  his  hand  rapid  and  careful,  and 
when  he  was  not  too  exacting,  the  triumph  of  rap- 
ture and  science — in  a  word,  of  self-confidence." 

Kubens  had  courage.  He  used  to  say  :  "  Every 
one  according  to  his  gift ;  my  talent  is  such  that 
never  yet  has  an  undertaking,  however  extraor- 
dinary in  size  or  diversity  of  subjects,  daunted  my 
courage." 

The  "Assumption  of  the  Virgin"  in  the  Ant- 
werp Cathedral,  Dr.  Waagen  says,  "  may  be  said  to 
produce  the  same  effect  as  a  symphony,  in  which 
the  united  sounds  of  all  the  instruments  blend  to- 
gether joyously,  divinely,  mightily.  Xo  other 
painter  has  ever  known  how  to  produce  such  a  full 
and  satisfactory  tone  of  light,  such  a  deep  chiaro- 
oscuro  united  with  such  general  brilliancy." 

"St.  Theresa  pleading  for  the  Souls  in  Purga- 
tory," "  St.  Anne  instructing  the  Virgin,"  and  the 
"  Dead  Saviour  laid  on  a  Stone,"  are  now  at  Ant- 


RUBENS.  269 

werp.  Five  of  the  above  pictures  and  three  others, 
"  Christ  on  the  Cross,"  "  The  Resurrection  of  our 
Saviour,"  and  "The  Adoration  of  the  Shepherds," 
were  painted  in  eighteen  days,  Rubens  receiving 
as  compensation  fifty  dollars  per  day,  his  usual 
price. 

For  a  magnificent  church  built  by  the  Jesuits, 
Rubens  painted  two  works  for  the  high  altar,  pic- 
tures for  two  other  altars,  and  thirty -nine  ceilings 
with  Bible  scenes,  including  the  "  Assumption " 
and  "Coronation  of  the  Virgin,"  the  "Translation 
of  Elijah,"  and  the  "  Archangel  Michael  triumph- 
ing over  the  Serpent."  These  works  with  the 
church  were  all  destroyed  by  fire,  caused  by  light- 
ning, in  1718. 

With  all  this  prosperity  it  was  not  strange  that 
envy  and  jealousy  should  now  and  then  confront 
Rubens.  One  of  his  rivals  invited  him  to  paint  a 
picture  on  some  chosen  subject,  and  allow  umpires 
to  decide  which  was  the  better  work.  Rubens 
replied  to  the  challenge  :  "  My  attempts  have  been 
subjected  to  the  scrutiny  of  connoisseurs  in  Italy 
and  Spain.  They  are  to  be  found  in  public  collec- 
tions and  private  galleries  in  those  countries ; 
gentlemen  are  at  liberty  to  place  their  works  be- 
side them,  in  order  that  the  comparison  be  made." 

The  great  artist  used  to  say,  "Do  well,  and 
people  will  be  jealous  of  you ;  do  better,  and  you 
confound  them." 

He  employed  several  pupils  to  help  him  con- 
stantly. He  would  make  sketches  and  superintend 


270  RUBENS. 

the  work,  adding  the  finishing  touches.  Having 
been  asked  to  paint  for  the  Cathedral  of  Malines 
a  "  Last  Supper,"  Rubens  made  the  drawing  and 
sent  it  to  one  of  his  pupils,  Juste  van  Egmont,  to 
lay  on  the  ground  color.  The  canon  of  the  cathe- 
dral said  to  Van  Egmont,  "  Why  did  your  master 
not  come  himself  ?  "  "  Don't  be  uneasy,"  was 
the  reply.  "  He  will,  as  is  his  custom,  finish  the 
picture." 

Egmont  went  on  with  the  work,  when  finally  the 
canon,  in  a  rage,  ordered  him  to  stop,  while  he 
wrote  to  Rubens :  "  'Twas  a  picture  by  your  own 
hand  I  ordered,  not  an  attempt  by  an  apprentice. 
Come,  then,  and  handle  the  brush  yourself :  or  re- 
call your  Juste  van  Egmont,  and  tell  him  to  take 
with  him  his  sketch;  my  intention  being  not  to 
accept  it,  you  can  keep  it  for  yourself." 

Rubens  wrote  back :  "  I  proceed  always  in  this 
way ;  after  having  made  the  drawing,  I  let  my  pu- 
pils begin  the  picture,  finish  even,  according  to  my 
principles ;  then  I  retouch  it,  and  give  it  my  stamp. 
I  shall  go  to  Malines  in  a  few  days ;  your  dissatis- 
faction will  cease."  Rubens  came,  and  the  canon 
was  satisfied. 

Mr.  Kett  says:  "Rubens's  method  of  painting 
was  his  own.  Some  of  his  fellow-countrymen, 
who  were  jealous  of  him,  said  he  did  not  use 
paints,  but  colored  varnishes,  and  that  his  pictures 
would  not  last ;  of  the  latter  point  we  are  the  better 
judges.  He  used  light  grounds,  almost,  if  not 
quite  white  j  his  outlines  were  drawn  with  a  brush 


RUBENS.  271 

in  color  (often  red  for  the  flesh),  and  very  trans- 
parent glazes  were  laid  over  all  the  shadows,  the 
lights  being  sometimes,  not  always,  painted  thicker. 
He  exposed  his  pictures  to  the  sun  for  short  spaces 
of  time,  between  the  paintings,  to  dry  out  the  oil. 
They  received  several  coats  of  color,  and  then, 
tinally,  he  put  in  the  stronger  touches  himself,  the 
light  ones  now  thick.  All  his  works,  however,  do 
not  seem  to  have  been  done  in  this  way,  but  many 
have  solid  painting  from  the  first." 

Rubens  had  become  both  rich  and  famous.  When 
an  alchemist  visited  him,  urging  that  he  furnish  a 
laboratory  and  apparatus  for  the  process  of  trans- 
mutation of  metals,  and  share  the  profits,  the  painter 
replied  :  "  You  have  come  twenty  years  too  late ;  I 
found  out  the  secret  long  ago ;  "  and  then,  pointing 
to  his  palette  and  brushes,  he  added,  "  Everything 
I  touch  with  these  turns  to  gold." 

A  new  honor  was  now  conferred  upon  Rubens. 
Marie  de'  Medici,  the  sister  of  the  Duchess  Leonora 
of  Mantua,  wished  to  adorn  her  palace  of  the  Lux- 
embourg, in  Paris,  with  great  magnificence.  Henry, 
Baron  Vicq,  the  ambassador  of  the  Archduke  Al- 
bert and  Isabella,  spoke  to  Queen  Marie  of  Rubens. 
She  must  have  known  of  his  work,  also,  when  he 
was  the  court  painter  of  Mantua.  He  was  sum- 
moned to  Paris,  and  took  the  order  for  twenty-two 
immense  pictures,  illustrative  of  her  life.  These 
are  now  in  the  Louvre,  full  of  vigor,  brilliant  in  im- 
agery, and  rich  in  color. 

In  the  first  picture  the  three  Fates  spin  the  for- 


272  RUBENS. 

tunes  of  Marie  de'  Medici ;  the  second  represents 
her  birth  at  Florence,  in  1575,  Lucina,  the  goddess 
of  births,  being  present  with  her  torch,  while  Flo- 
rentia,  the  goddess  of  the  city,  holds  the  new-born 
infant ;  the  third,  her  education,  conducted  by  Mi- 
nerva, Apollo,  and  Mercury ;  fourth,  Love  shows 
the  princess  the  portrait  of  Henry  IV.,  whom  she 
married  in  1600,  after  he  had  been  divorced  from 
Margaret  of  Valois,  in  the  preceding  year ;  above 
are  Jupiter  and  Juno ;  beside  the  king  appears 
Gallia ;  fifth  shows  the  nuptials  ;  the  Grand  Duke 
Ferdinand  of  Tuscany  acts  as  proxy  for  his  niece's 
husband ;  sixth,  the  queen  lands  at  Marseilles ; 
seventh,  the  wedding  festival,  at  Lyons,  with 
Henry  IV.  as  Jupiter,  and  Marie  as  Juno ;  eighth, 
the  birth  of  Louis  XIII.,  in  1601,  with  Fortuna 
behind  the  queen ;  ninth,  Henry  IV.  starting  on  his 
campaign  against  Germany,  in  1610,  when  he  makes 
the  queen  regent;  tenth,  coronation  of  the  queen 
at  St.  Denis ;  eleventh,  apotheosis  of  Henry  IV., 
who  was  stabbed  by  Ravaillac,  it  is  said,  not  against 
the  queen's  wishes,  who,  nevertheless,  in  the  pic- 
ture is  enthroned  in  mourning  robes  between  Mi- 
nerva and  Wisdom ;  twelfth,  regency  of  the  queen 
under  the  protection  of  Olympus ;  Mars,  Apollo, 
and  Minerva  drive  away  the  hostile  powers,  while 
Juno  and  Jupiter  cause  the  chariot  of  France  to  be 
drawn  by  gentle  doves;  thirteenth,  the  queen  in 
the  field  during  the  civil  war  in  France ;  fourteenth, 
treaty  between  France  and  Spain  ;  fifteenth,  pros- 
perity during  the  regency,  the  queen  bearing  the 


RUBENS.  273 

scales  of  justice  with  Minerva,  Fortuna,  and  Abun- 
dantia  on  the  right,  G-allia  and  Time  on  the  left, 
while  below  are  Envy,  Hatred,  and  Stupidity ;  six- 
teenth, the  queen  commits  the  rudder  of  the  Ship 
of  State,  rowed  by  the  Virtues,  to  Louis  XIII.,  who 
certainly  must  have  deserted  these  virtues  early  in 
his  career ;  seventeenth,  flight  of  the  queen,  in  1619, 
to  Blois,  where  the  wily  Cardinal  Richelieu  joined 
her  as  a  pretended  friend ;  eighteenth,  Mercury 
presents  himself  to  the  queen  as  a  messenger  of 
peace  ;  nineteenth,  the  queen  is  conducted  into  the 
temple  of  peace ;  twentieth,  Marie  and  Louis  XIII. 
on  Olympus,  with  the  dragon  of  rebellion  below 
them ;  twenty-first,  the  king  giving  his  mother  a 
chaplet  of  peace ;  twenty-second,  portrait  of  Marie  ; 
followed  by  portraits  of  her  parents,  Grand  Duke 
Francis  and  Johanna,  Grand  Duchess  of  Tus:any. 

Fortunately,  Rubens  could  not  paint  the  sad 
future  of  Marie  de'  Medici.  She  died  in  a  poor 
apartment  at  Cologne,  deserted  by  her  family.  The 
queen  was  delighted  with  Rubeus's  pictures,  taking 
lessons  of  him  in  drawing,  and  often  conversing 
with  him  while  he  made  the  sketches,  the  painting 
being  done  by  himself  and  his  pupils  in  his  studio 
at  Antwerp,  in  about  two  yeirs  and  a  half. 

The  queen  had  intended  to  adorn  another  gallery 
at  the  Luxembourg  with  the  life  of  Henry  IV.,  but 
the  project  was  abandoned  in  consequence  of  the 
quarrel  between  Marie  and  Cardinal  Richelieu. 

Rubens  painted  other  pictures  while  at  work  on 
the  Medici  allegory :  "  Susannah  and  the  Elders," 


274  RUBENS. 

"Lot's  Daughters,"  a  beautiful  "Virgin  and  Child" 
for  Baron  de  Vicq,  who  had  recommended  him  to 
Marie  de'  Medici,  and  several  other  works. 

In  his  "  Kermess  "  now  in  the  Louvre,  a  peas- 
ant festival  in  Flanders,  "  in  front  of  a  village  inn 
about  fourscore  persons  of  both  sexes  are  depicted, 
intermingled  in  varieties  of  groups,  in  the  full 
swing  of  boisterous  enjoyment  after  a  better  meal 
than  peasants  are  used  to,  singing,  dancing,  talk- 
ing, shouting,  gambolling,  love-making.  A  large, 
serious  dog  tries  to  get  his  share  by  prying  into  a 
pail  half  filled  with  empty  platters.  An  abound- 
ing scene  of  rustic  revelry,  in  the  groups  and  indi- 
viduals a  character  and  expression  which  only 
warm  genius  animating  rich  intellectual  resources 
could  give." 

Rubens  delighted  in  painting  animals.  "It  is 
related,"  says  Calvert,  "  that  he  caused  to  be 
brought  to  his  house  a  very  fine  and  powerful  lion 
that  he  might  study  him  in  his  various  attitudes. 
But  what  he  had  still  greater  delight  in  painting 
than  animals  was  children.  Here,  too,  as  with 
animals,  and  in  a  higher  form,  he  had  what  a  healthy, 
juicy  mind  like  his  revelled  in,  nature  unsophisti- 
cated. It  may  have  been  in  front  of  one  of  his 
canvases  glowing  with  the  luminous  rosiness  of 
half  a  dozen  of  these  happy  soul-buds  that  Guido 
exclaimed,  'Does  Rubens  mix  blood  with  his 
paint  ? '  The  mobility  of  children,  their  natural- 
ness, their  unveiled  life  and  innocence,  humanity  in 
its  heavenly  promise,  laughing  incarnations  of 


RUBENS.  275 

hope,  all  appealed  to  his  liveliest  sympathies,  as  to 
his  artistic  preferences." 

He  was  skilled,  also,  in  portraits.  Mr.  Kett 
says  the  picture  of  his  mother,  in  the  Dulwich  Gal- 
lery, the  "  Spanish  Hat,"  in  the  National  Gallery, 
and  the  portrait  called  "  General  Velasquez  "  "  are 
three  that  could  scarcely  be  excelled  by  any  mas- 
ter of  any  time." 

Dr.  Waagen  says  of  "  Le  Chapeau  de  Foil " 
("The  Spanish  Hat"),  "No  picture  justifies  more 
than  this  the  appellation  which  Rubens  has 
obtained  of  '  The  Painter  of  Light.'  No  one  who 
has  not  beheld  this  masterpiece  of  painting  can 
form  any  conception  of  the  transparency  and 
brilliancy  with  which  the  local  coloring  in  the 
features  and  complexion,  though  under  the  shadow 
of  a  broad-brimmed  Spanish  beaver  hat,  are  brought 
out  and  made  to  tell,  while  the  different  parts  are 
rounded  and  relieved  with  the  finest  knowledge 
and  use  of  reflected  lights.  The  expression  of 
those  youthful  features,  beaming  with  cheerfulness, 
is  so  full  of  life,  and  has  such  a  perfect  charm, 
that  one  is  inclined  to  believe  the  tradition  that 
Rubens  fell  in  love  with  the  original  (a  young 
girl  of  the  Lunden  family,  at  Antwerp)  whilst  she 
was  sitting  to  him." 

Mrs.  Jameson  says,  "  The  picture  as  a  picture  is 
miraculous,  all  but  life  itself.  .  .  .  Rubens,  during 
his  life,  would  never  part  with  this  picture.  .  .  . 
After  the  death  of  his  widow,  it  passed  into  the 
possession  of  the  Lunden  family,  whose  heir, 


276  RUBENS. 

M.  Van  Havre,  sold  it  in  1817,  for  sixty  thousand 
francs,  to  another  descendant  of  the  family,  M. 
Stier  d'Artselaer.  At  his  death,  in  1822,  it  was 
sold  by  auction  and  purchased  by  M.  Niewenhuys 
for  seventy-five  thousand  francs,  and  brought  to 
England,  where,  after  being  offered  in  vain  to 
George  IV.,  it  was  bought  by  Sir  Kobert  Peel  for 
three  thousand  five  hundred  guineas.  .  .  . 

"  To  venture  to  judge  Rubens,  we  ought  to  have 
seen  many  of  his  pictures.  His  defects  may  be 
acknowledged  once  for  all.  They  are  in  all  senses 
gross,  open,  palpable ;  his  florid  color,  dazzling  and 
garish  in  its  indiscriminate  excess ;  his  exagger- 
ated, redundant  forms ;  his  coarse  allegories ;  his 
historical  improprieties ;  his  vulgar  and  prosaic 
versions  of  the  loftiest  and  most  delicate  creations 
of  poetry ;  let  all  these  be  granted,  but  this  man 
painted  that  sublime  history  (a  series  of  six  pic- 
tures), almost  faultless  in  conception  and  in  cos- 
tume, the  '  Decius '  in  the  Liechtenstein  Gallery. 
This  man,  who  has  been  called  unpoetical,  and  who 
was  a  born  poet,  if  ever  there  was  one,  conceived 
that  magnificent  epic,  the  '  Battle  of  the  Ama- 
zons ; '  that  divine  lyric,  the  '  Virgin  Mary  '  tramp- 
ling sin  and  the  dragon,  in  the  Munich  Gallery, 
which  might  be  styled  a  Pindaric  Ode  in  honor  of 
the  Virgin,  only  painted  instead  of  sung;  and 
those  tenderest  moral  poems,  the  'St.  Theresa' 
pleading  for  the  souls  in  Purgatory,  and  the  little 
sketch  of  '  War,'  where  a  woman  sits  desolate  on 
the  black,  wide  heath,  with  dead  bodies  and  imple- 


RUBENS.  277 

ments  of  war  heaped  in  shadowy  masses  around 
her,  while,  just  seen  against  the  lurid  streak  of 
light  left  by  the  setting  sun,  the  battle  rages  in 
the  far  distance.  .  .  . 

"  Though  thus  dramatic  in  the  strongest  sense, 
yet  he  is  so  without  approaching  the  verge  of 
what  we  call  theatrical.  With  all  his  flaunting 
luxuriance  of  color,  and  occasional  exaggeration  in 
form,  we  cannot  apply  that  word  to  him.  Le 
Bran  is  theatrical ;  Eubens,  never.  His  sins  are 
those  of  excess  of  daring  and  power;  but  he  is 
ever  the  reverse  of  the  flimsy,  the  artificial,  or  the 
superficial.  His  gay  magnificence  and  sumptuous 
fancy  are  always  accompanied  by  a  certain  impress 
and  assurance  of  power  and  grandeur,  which  often 
reaches  the  sublime,  even  when  it  stops  short  of 
the  ideal." 

A  few  months  after  the  paintings  were  finished 
for  Marie  de'  Medici,  a  great  sorrow  came  to  the 
Rubens  mansion.  Isabella  Brandt,  his  wife,  died 
in  the  middle  of  the  year  1626,  leaving  two  sons, 
Albert  and  Nicholas,  twelve  and  eight  years  of 
age.  She  was  buried  with  much  display  in  the 
Abbey  Church  of  St.  Michael,  where  she  had  been 
married,  —  in  the  same  tomb  with  his  mother  and 
his  brother  Philip,  and  her  husband  dedicated  a 
beautiful  "  Virgin  and  Child  "  to  her  memory.  He 
wrote  to  a  friend,  sadly,  in  regard  to  her  whom  he 
had  lost,  as  one  "not  having  any  of  the  vices  of 
her  sex.  She  was  without  bad  temper  or  feminine 
frivolity,  but  was  in  every  way  good  and  honorable 


278  RUBENS. 

—  in  life  loved  on  account  of  her  virtues,  and 
since  her  death  universally  bewailed  by  all.  Such 
a  loss  seems  to  me  worthy  of  sympathy,  and  be- 
cause the  true  remedy  for  all  evils  is  forgetfulness, 
the  daughter  of  time,  one  must  without  doubt  hope 
for  relief ;  but  I  find  the  separation  of  grief  for  the 
departed  from  the  memory  of  a  person  whom  I 
ought  to  revere  and  honor  whilst  1  live,  to  be  very 
difficult." 

Partly  to  distract  his  mind  from  his  grief,  and 
partly  to  assist  his  own  country,  to  which  he  was 
devotedly  attached,  to  keep  peace  with  the  powers 
at  war,  which  made  Belgium  their  battle-ground, 
at  the  request  of  the  Infanta  Isabella  he  visited 
Holland  on  a  diplomatic  mission,  and.  a  little 
later,  Spain  and  England.  The  King  of  Spain  had 
already  ennobled  Rubens.  "  Regard  being  had 
to  the  great  renown  which  he  has  merited  and 
acquired  by  excellence  in  the  art  of  painting,  and 
rare  experience  in  the  same,  as  also  by  the  knowl- 
edge which  he  has  of  histories  and  languages,  and 
other  fine  qualities  and  parts  which  he  possesses, 
and  which  render  him  worthy  of  our  royal  favor, 
we  have  granted  and  do  grant  to  the  said  Peter 
Paul  Rubens  and  his  children  and  posterity,  male 
and  female,  the  said  title  and  degree  of  nobility." 
In  consequence  of  this,  Isabella  had  made  him 
"  gentleman  of  her  household." 

In  this  his  second  visit  to  Spain,  he  is  said  to 
have  painted  forty  pictures  in  nine  months. 
Rubens  and  Velasquez  became  intimate  friends, 


BUBENS.  279 

although  the  former  was  fifty-one,  and  the  latter 
twenty-eight. 

A  little  later  he  was  sent  by  Philip  IV.  of  Spain, 
who  had  appointed  Rubens  secretary  to  his  privy 
council,  on  a  mission  to  England.  Here  he  was 
discovered  by  a  courtier,  one  morning,  busy  at  his 
painting.  "  Ho  ! "  said  the  courtier,  "  does  his  Most 
Catholic  Majesty's  representative  amuse  himself 
with  painting  ?  " 

"  No,"  answered  Rubens,  "  the  artist  .sometimes 
amuses  himself  with  diplomacy." 

Rubens  painted  for  King  Charles  I.,  "  Diana  and 
her  Nymphs  surprised  by  Satyrs,"  and  "Peace  and 
Plenty,"  which  latter,  after  remaining  in  Italy  for 
a  century,  was  finally  bought  by  the  Marquis  of 
Stafford,  for  fifteen  thousand  dollars,  and  by  him 
presented  to  the  National  Gallery.  Rubens  also 
made  nine  sketches  for  pictures  ordered  by  the 
king  to  decorate  the  ceiling  of  the  throne-room 
of  Whitehall,  illustrating  the  deeds  of  James  I. 
These  cost  fifteen  thousand  dollars. 

King  Charles  knighted  the  famous  painter,  and 
after  the  ceremony  presented  him  with  the  sword, 
a  handsome  service  of  plate,  a  diamond  ring,  and 
a  rich  chain  to  which  was  attached  a  miniature  of 
the  king ;  this  he  ever  afterwards  wore  round  his 
neck. 

At  Cambridge  University  he  was  received  by 
Lord  Holland,  the  Chancellor,  and  admitted  to  the 
honorary  degree  of  Master  of  Arts. 

As  a  diplomatist,   M.  Villoamil  says,  "  Rubens 


280  RUBENS. 

had  great  tact,  was  prudent,  active,  forbearing,  and 
patient  to  the  last  degree,  and,  above  all,  throwing 
aside  all  personality,  how  exclusively  careful  he 
was  neither  to  exceed  nor  fall  short  of  the  line 
laid  down  to  him  from  Spain,  softening,  when  it 
seemed  harsh,  what  the  Count  Duke  (Olivarezs)  had 
charged  him  to  communicate,  and  even  taking  on 
himself  faults  and  errors  which  he  had  not  com- 
mitted, when  by  such  assumption  he  could  advance 
his  objects  and  gain  the  ends  he  had  in  view  in  the 
service  of  Spain." 

How  few  in  this  world  learn  the  beauty  and  the 
power  of  being  "  patient  to  the  last  degree  !  "  How 
few  learn  early  in  life  to  avoid  gossip,  to  speak 
well  of  others,  and  to  make  peace  ! 

In  1630,  four  years  after  the  death  of  Isabella 
Brandt,  Rubens  married  her  sister's  daughter, 
Helena  Fourment,  a  wealthy  girl  of  sixteen,  while 
the  painter  was  fifty-three.  He  seems  to  have 
thought  her  beautiful,  as  she  appears  in  nearly  all 
his  subsequent  paintings.  A.t  Blenheim  are  two 
portraits  of  the  fair  Helena :  one,  representing 
himself  and  his  wife  in  a  flower  garden  with  their 
little  child,  Dr.  Waagen  regards  as  one  of  the  most 
perfect  family  pictures  in  the  world. 

In  the  Belvidere,  Vienna,  is  a  magnificent  por- 
trait of  Helena  Fourment.  She  bore  to  Kubens 
five  children  in  the  ten  remaining  years  of  his  life. 

He  soon  bought  a  lovely  country  home,  the 
Chateau  de  Steen  at  Elewyt,  which  was  sold  at 
his  death  for  forty  thousand  dollars.  "  It  was," 


RUBENS.  281 

says  Huet,  "  a  feudal  castle,  surrounded  OTI  all 
sides  with  water.  Rubens,  though  nothing  need 
have  prevented  him  from  demolishing  the  castle 
and  erecting  an  Italian  villa  on  its  site,  respected 
its  mediaeval  architecture.  One  may  take  it  that 
the  mediaeval  turrets  and  the  mediaeval  moat  made 
up,  according  to  him,  an  agreeable  whole  with  the 
sylvan  surroundings.  An  imagination  like  his  felt 
at  home  everywhere.  The  principal  charm  of 
'  Steen  '  lay  in  its  being  but  a  day's  journey  from 
Antwerp,  —  that  there  wife  and  children  could 
breathe  the  beneficent  country  air  in  unstinted 
draughts,  and  the  artist  himself  could  indulge  his 
leisure  and  find  new  subjects.  It  is  all  but  cer- 
tain that  the  idyl  of  '  The  Rainbow '  and  the 
bacchaTialia  of  '  The  Village  Fair '  were  painted 
nowhere  else  but  at  Steeu.  .  .  . 

"  Though  the  two  centuries  and  a  half  that  have 
elapsed  since  then  have  altered  the  means  of  loco- 
motion and  communication  so  thoroughly  as  to 
make  them  difficult  of  recognition,  it  needs  no 
great  effort  of  the  imagination  to  follow  the 
Rubens  family  from  stage  to  stage  on  its  flitting 
to  the  summer  quarters.  We  can  fancy  him  sitting 
one  of  those  splendid  horses  he  so  magnificently 
bestrode.  A  team  of  four  or  six  less  costly,  but 
well-fed,  well-groomed,  and  well-equipped  cattle 
drags  through  the  loose  sand  or  heavy  clay  the 
still  heavier  coach,  where,  between  children  and 
nursemaids,  thrones  the  mistress  of  the  house,  not 
very  securely ;  for  she,  like  the  rest,  is  considera- 


282  RUBENS. 

bly  jolted.  She  wears  the  large  hat  with  feathers, 
beneath  which  the  charming  face  meets  the  specta- 
tors, as  in  the  picture  in  the  Louvre.  A  solid  train 
with  provisions  for  the  long  journey  brings  up  the 
rear  of  the  procession.  Proud  of  his  young  wife, 
anxious  as  to  her  every  want,  the  great  artist, 
whose  hair  and  beard  are  plentifully  besprinkled 
with  gray,  does  not  leave  the  carriage  door  by  her 
side." 

During  the  last  years  of  his  life  Rubens  suffered 
much  from  gout,  but,  with  the  help  of  his  pupils, 
he  accomplished  a  great  amount  of  work.  Many  of 
his  scholars  became  famous :  Van  Dyck,  Jordaens, 
Snyders,  Teniers,  and  others. 

Van  Dyck  was  twenty-two  years  younger  than 
Rubens,  and  entered  his  studio  when  he  was  seven- 
teen. In  four  years  his  works  began  to  be  almost 
as  much  esteemed  as  those  of  his  master.  It  is 
said  that  one  day,  during  the  absence  of  Rubens 
from  his  studio,  the  pupils,  crowding  around  a 
freshly  painted  picture,  pushed  against  it,  thus 
effacing  the  arm  and  chin  of  a  Virgin.  They  were 
greatly  distressed  over  the  matter,  when  Van 
Hoeck  cried  out :  "  Van  Dyck  is  the  handiest ;  he 
must  repair  the  mischief."  The  restoration  was  so 
deftly  made  that  Rubens  did  not  observe  the 
accident. 

Later,  when  Van  Dyck  came  back  from  Italy, 
after  five  years  of  study  there,  he  found  little  sale 
for  his  pictures,  and  was  depressed.  Rubens  went 
to  his  studio,  comforted  him,  and  bought  all  his 


BUB  ENS.  283 

paintings  which  were  finished.  He  did  the  same 
thing  with  a  rival  who  had  maligned  him  because 
he  was  not  as  successful  as  the  great  painter. 
When  Rubens  died,  he  owned  in  his  gallery  over 
three  hundred  pictures,  many  by  Titian,  Paul 
Veronese,  Tintoretto,  and  Van  Dyck,  and  ninety 
by  his  own  hand. 

In  1635,  when  Philip  IV.  of  Spain  had  ap- 
pointed as  governor  of  the  Netherlands  his  own 
brother,  the  Cardinal  Infanta  Ferdinand,  Sir  Peter 
Paul  Rubens  was  deputed  to  design  the  triumphal 
arches  and  ornamental  temples  for  his  solemn 
entry  into  Antwerp.  These  beautiful  designs 
were  afterwards  engraved  and  published,  with  a 
learned  Latin  description  by  his  friend  Gevaerts, 
though  they  were  not  ready  for  the  press  till  the 
year  after  Rubens's  death.  On  the  day  when 
Ferdinand  entered  Antwerp,  Rubens  was  ill  at 
his  house,  but  the  new  governor  showed  his  ap- 
preciation of  his  talent  and  learning  by  calling 
upon  him  in  his  own  home,  as  Queen  Marie  de' 
Medici,  the  Infanta  Isabella,  and  other  famous 
persons  had  done. 

His  last  piece  of  work  was  the  "  Crucifixion  of 
St.  Peter,"  for  St.  Peter's  Church  at  Cologne.  He 
asked  for  a  year  and  a  half  to  complete  the  pic- 
ture, but  death  came  before  it  was  finished.  It 
represents  the  apostle  nailed  to  the  cross  with  his 
head  downwards,  surrounded  by  six  executioners. 
"He  has  proved,"  says  Gustave  Planche,  "over 
and  over  again  that  he  knew  all  the  secrets  of  the 


284  RUBENS. 

human  form,  but  never  has  he  proved  it  so  clearly 
as  in  the  Crucifixion  of  Peter." 

May  30,  1640,  Antwerp  was  in  mourning  for  her 
world-renowned  painter.  He  was  buried  at  night, 
as  was  the  custom,'  a  great  concourse  of  citizens, 
all  the  artistic  and  literary  societies,  and  sixty 
orphan  children  with  torches,  following  his  body 
to  the  grave.  It  was  temporarily  placed  in  the 
vault  of  the  Fourment  family,  and  March  4,  1642, 
was  removed  to  a  special  chapel  built  by  his  wife 
in  the  Church  of  St.  James  in  Antwerp.  At  his 
own  request,  made  three  days  before  his  death,  a 
"  Holy  Family,"  one  of  his  best  works,  was  hung 
above  his  resting-place.  In  the  picture,  St.  George 
is  a  portrait  of  himself,  St.  Jerome  of  his  father, 
an  angel  of  his  youngest  son,  and  Martha  and 
Mary  of  Isabella  and  Helena,  his  two  wives.  "  A 
group  of  tiny  angels,  floating  in  the  air,  crown  the 
Holy  Child  with  a  wreath  of  flowers." 

The  learned  nephew  of  Rubens.  Gevaerts,  wrote 
the  following  epitaph,  in  Latin,  now  inscribed  on 
his  monument :  — 

"Here  lies  Peter  Paul  Rubens,  knight,  and 
Lord  of  Steen,  son  of  John  Rubens,  a  senator  of 
this  city.  Gifted  with  marvellous  talents,  versed 
in  ancient  history,  a  master  of  all  the  liberal  arts 
and  of  the  elegancies  of  life,  he  deserved  to  be 
called  the  Apelles  of  his  age  and  of  all  ages.  He 
won  for  himself  the  good  will  of  monarchs  and  of 
princely  men.  Philip  IV.,  King  of  Spain  and  the 
Indies,  appointed  him  secretary  of  his  Privy 


RUBENS.  285 

Council,  and  sent  him  on  an  embassy  to  the  King 
of  England  in  1629,  when  he  happily  laid  the 
foundation  of  the  peace  that  was  soon  concluded 
between  those  two  sovereigns.  He  died  in  the 
year  of  salvation  1640,  on  the  30th  of  May,  aged 
sixty-three  years." 

The  wife  of  Rubens  afterwards  married  John 
Baptist  Broechoven,  Baron  van  Bergeyck,  an  am- 
bassador in  England  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II. 

Rubens  left  his  large  collection  of  sketches  to 
whichever  of  his  sons  might  become  an  artist,  or 
whichever  of  his  daughters  might  marry  an  artist, 
but  not  one  fulfilled  the  conditions. 

Two  hundred  years  after  Rubens's  death,  in  1870, 
a  monument  was  erected  to  his  memory  in  one  of 
the  public  squares  of  Antwerp,  and  in  1877  a 
memorial  festival  was  held  in  his  honor  in  the 
same  city. 


REMBRANDT. 


TpDMONDO  DE  AMICIS,  that  wonderful  word- 
J-J  painter,  says  in  his  "  Holland  and  its  People : " 
"However  one  may  be  profane  in  art,  and  have 
made  a  vow  never  more  to  offend  in  too  much 
enthusiasm,  when  one  is  in  the  presence  of  Rem- 
brandt van  Ehijn,  one  can  but  raise  a  little,  as  the 
Spaniards  say,  the  key  of  one's  style.  Rembrandt 
exercised  a  particular  prestige.  Fra  Angelico  is  a 
saint,  Michael  Angelo  a  giant,  Raphael  an  angel, 
Titian  a  prince ;  Rembrandt  is  a  supernatural  be- 
ing. How  otherwise  shall  we  name  that  son  of  a 
miller?  Born  in  a  windmill,  rising  unheralded, 
without  master,  without  examples,  without  any 
derivation  from  schools,  he  became  a  universal 
painter,  embraced  all  the  aspects  of  life,  painted 
figures,  landscapes,  marine  views,  animals,  saints 
in  paradise,  patriarchs,  heroes,  monks,  wealth  and 
misery,  deformity  and  decrepitude,  the  ghetto,  the 
tavern,  the  hospital,  death ;  made,  in  short,  a  re- 
view of  heaven  and  earth,  and  rendered  all  things 
visible  by  a  light  from  the  arcana  of  his  own  ima- 
gination. 

"It   was   said  that   the   contrast   of  light  and 
shadow  corresponded  in  him  to  diverse  movements 


REMBRANDT. 


REMBRANDT.  287 

of  thought.  Schiller,  before  beginning  a  work, 
heard  within  himself  a  harmony  of  indistinct 
sounds,  which  were  like  a  prelude  to  inspiration ; 
in  like  manner,  Rembrandt,  when  in  the  act  of  con- 
ceiving a  picture,  had  a  vision  of  rays  and  shad- 
ows, which  spoke  to  his  soul  before  he  animated 
them  with  his  personages.  There  is  in  his  pictures 
a  life,  and  what  may  almost  be  called  a  dramatic 
action,  quite  apart  from  the  human  figures.  Vivid 
rays  of  light  break  into  the  darkness  like  cries  of 
joy ;  the  darkness  flies  in  terror,  leaving  here  and 
there  fragments  of  shadow  full  of  melancholy,  trem- 
ulous reflections  that  seem  like  lamentations ;  pro- 
found obscurity  full  of  dim  threatenings  ;  spurts  of 
light,  sparkles,  ambiguous  shadows,  doubtful  trans- 
parencies, questionings,  sighs,  words  of  a  super- 
natural language,  heard  like  music,  and  not  under- 
stood, and  remaining  in  the  memory  like  the  vague 
relics  of  a  dream. 

"  And  in  this  atmosphere  he  plants  his  figures, 
of  which  some  are  clothed  in  the  dazzling  light  of 
a  theatrical  apotheosis,  others  veiled  like  phan- 
toms, others  revealed  by  one  stroke  of  light  upon 
the  face ;  dressed  in  habits  of  luxury  or  misery, 
but  all  with  something  strange  and  fantastic ;  with- 
out distinctness  of  outline,  but  loaded  with  power- 
fill  colors,  sculptural  reliefs,  and  bold  touches  of 
the  brush;  and  everywhere  a  warmth  of  expres- 
sion, a  fury  of  violent  inspiration,  the  superb,  ca- 
pricious, and  profound  imprint  of  a  free  and  fear- 
less genius." 


288  REMBRANDT. 

This  strange,  great  painter,  Rembrandt,  was  born, 
not  in  a  windmill,  as  Amicis  says,  but  in  Leyden, 
Holland,  July  15, 1607.  His  father,  Gerrit  Harmen 
van  Rhijn,  a  miller,  was  then  forty  years  old,  in  easy 
circumstances,  married  to  the  daughter  of  the  baker 
Willems  van  Snydtbrouck,  then  thirty-five,  a 
vigorous,  strong-charactered  woman,  whom  the 
boy,  in  after  years,  loved  to  paint,  over  and  over 
again. 

Of  their  six  children,  Adriaen,  who  became  a 
miller,  Gerrit,  Macbteld,  Cornells,  Willera,  who 
became  a  baker,  and  Rembrandt,  the  latter  was 
destined  for  the  law.  He  was  early  taught  Latin, 
as  a  preparation  for  the  Leyden  Academy,  but 
before  he  was  twelve  he  showed  such  decided  taste 
for  painting  and  designing  that  his  parents  re- 
moved the  lad  from  school,  and  placed  him  with  a 
relative,  who  was  an  artist,  Jacob  van  Swanenburg. 
He  had  returned  from  study  in  Italy  in  1617,  and 
Rembrandt  entered  his  studio,  probably  in  1620, 
the  year  in  which  our  forefathers  left  Holland. 

For  three  years  the  boy  bent  himself  closely  to 
the  work  he  loved.  He  made  such  remarkable 
progress  that,  at  the  end  of  this  time,  he  was  sent 
to  the  well-known  painter,  Pieter  Lastman  of  Am- 
sterdam. He  remained  there  but  six  months,  and 
then  returned  to  his  home  in  Leyden. 

From  the  age  of  seventeen  to  twenty,  while  in 
his  Leyden  home,  we  know  little  of  the  youth, 
save  that  he  studied  nature  with  loving  fidelity, 
wandered  over  the  low,  picturesque  country  with 


REMBRANDT.  289 

its  canal  and  windmills,  and  observed  people  and 
skies  and  landscapes. 

The  first  work  attributed  to  Rembrandt  was 
painted  in  1627,  when  he  was  twenty  years  old, 
"St.  Paul  in  Prison,"  showing  care  in  detail  and 
richness  in  color.  During  the  next  two  years,  he 
made  etchings  of  himself  and  of  his  mother,  who 
appears  to  have  been  his  ideal. 

His  first  oil  paintings  were  done  in  1630 ;  one, 
now  lost,  showing  a  philosopher  in  a  grotto ;  and 
the  "Bust  of  an  Old  Man,"  which,  says  Prof.  John 
W.  Mollett  of  France,  in  his  Life  of  Rembrandt, 
"is  the  most  interesting  of  all  the  Rembrandts  in 
the  Cassel  Gallery,  from  the  fact  that  it  first  dis- 
played his  knowledge  of  the  great  secret,  which  he 
subsequently  so  wonderfully  developed,  of  concen- 
trating light  upon  the  heads  of  his  portraits.  He 
painted  other  old  men's  heads  at  the  same  date, 
and  all  are  remarkable  for  indefatigable  elabora- 
tion and  care.  In  this  same  year,  Rembrandt  pro- 
duced more  than  thirty  etchings." 

After  several  years  passed  at  Leyden,  Rembrandt 
removed  his  studio  to  Amsterdam,  a  rich  and 
flourishing  city  of  one  hundred  thousand  people 
at  that  time,  whither  his  fame  had  preceded  him. 
He  hired  apartments  over  a  shop  on  the  Bloem- 
gracht,  a  quay  in  the  western  part  of  the  city, 
where  numerous  pupils  soon  came  to  him,  and 
commissions  from  the  wealthy.  One  of  his  first 
principal  works  was  "  The  Presentation  in  the 
Temple,"  now  in  the  museum  at  the  Hague. 


290  BEMBRAXDT. 

"The  picture,"  says  Mr.  Sweetser,  " presents  a 
great  temple  interior,  with  groups  of  citizens  and 
prelates,  and,  in  the  centre,  massed  under  a  bright 
light,  the  Holy  Family,  with  the  richly  robed 
Simeon  adoring  the  child  Jesus.  It  is  full  of 
the  strong  shades  and  contrasting  brightness  of 
the  new  school  of  art,  replete  with  poetic  power 
and  fresh  personality,  warm  in  golden  lights,  and 
in  certain  parts  showing  a  rare  minuteness  of  finish 
in  detail.  This  subject  was  always  a  favorite  with 
Kembrandt,  and  several  other  paintings  thereof  are 
preserved,  together  with  numerous  sketches  and 
engravings,  showing  the  venerable  Simeon  in  the 
Temple  at  Jerusalem. 

"  The  '  Susannah '  was  executed  during  the  same 
year,  and  is  now  at  the  Hague.  The  shrinking, 
naked  figure  of  the  fair  bather,  though  lacking  in 
statuesque  beauty  and  symmetry,  is  thoroughly 
natural  and  tender,  palpitating  with  life,  and 
lighted  with  a  warm  and  harmonious  glow.  This, 
also,  was  a  favorite  theme  with  Rembrandt,  and 
conveniently  replaced  the  Diana  and  Actseon  of 
the  classical  painters  with  a  subject  not  less  allur- 
ing, and  perhaps  more  permissible." 

Rembrandt  also  painted  "  St.  Jerome,"  now  at 
Aix-la-Chapelle,  the  lost  pictures  of  "  Lot  and  his 
Daughters,"  and  the  "  Baptism  of  the  Eunuch ; " 
"  The  Young  Man,"  now  at  Windsor ;  the  "  Proph- 
etess Anna,"  in  the  Oldenbourg  Gallery ;  the 
"  Portrait  of  a  Man,"  in  the  Brunswick  Museum ; 
and  about  forty  etchings,  among  them  two  por- 


REMBRANDT.  291 

traits  of  his  mother,  several  of  himself ;  the  "  Bath 
of  Diana,"  and  the  Meeting  of  "  Danae  and  Jupi- 
ter." 

In  1632,  Rembrandt  painted  his  famous  "  School 
of  Anatomy,"  now  at  the  Hague,  for  which  the 
Dutch  government,  two  centuries  later,  gave  thirty- 
two  thousand  florins. 

"This  picture  represents  the  celebrated  anato- 
mist, Nicolaus  Tulp,  a  friend  and  patron  of  Rem- 
brandt, in  a  vaulted  saloon,  engaged  in  explaining 
the  anatomy  of  the  arm  of  a  corpse.  He  wears  a 
black  cloak  with  a  lace  collar,  and  a  broad-brimmed 
soft  hat.  With  his  half-raised  left  hand,  he  makes 
a  gesture  of  explanation,  while  with  his  right  he 
is  dissecting  a  sinew  of  the  arm  of  his  subject. 
The  corpse  lies  on  a  table  before  him.  To  the 
right  of  Tulp  is  a  group  of  five  figures ;  and  two 
other  men  are  sitting  at  the  table  in  front.  These 
listeners  are  not  students,  but  members  of  the 
guild  of  surgeons  of  Amsterdam,  as  shown  by  a 
paper  held  by  one  of  them.  They  are  attending 
to  the  lecture  with  very  various  expressions. 

"  They  are  all  bare-headed,  dressed  in  black,  and 
with  turned-over  collars  except  one,  who  still 
wears  the  old-fashioned  upright  ruff.  There  are, 
perhaps,  other  persons  present  in  the  hall,  as  Tulp 
appears  to  be  looking  beyond  the  picture,  as  if 
about  to  address  an  audience  not  visible  to  the 
spectator ;  and  it  is  here  worthy  of  remark  that 
Rembrandt's  compositions  are  never  imprisoned  in 
their  frames,  but  convey  an  idea  of  a  wide  space 


292  REMBRANDT. 

beyond  them.  It  is  somewhat  singular  that  the 
spectator  seems  hardly  to  notice  the  corpse  lying 
before  him  at  full  length,  the  feet  of  which  he  can 
almost  touch,  although  it  is  strongly  lighted  in 
contrast  to  the  surrounding  black  garments,  and 
most  faithfully  presents  the  peculiar  hue  of  a  dead 
body,  leaving  no  doubt  that  it  was  painted  from 
nature,  as  well  as  the  living  heads.  The  admira- 
ble art  of  the  composition  consists  in  its  power  of 
riveting  the  attention  to  the  living  in  the  presence 
of  death." 

Amicis  says :  "  It  is  difficult  to  express  the 
effect  produced  by  this  picture.  The  first  feeling 
is  that  of  horror  and  repulsion  from  the  corpse. 
The  forehead  is  in  shadow,  the  eyes  open  with  the 
pupils  turned  upwards,  the  mouth  half  open  as  if 
in  astonishment,  the  chest  sunken,  the  legs  and 
feet  stiff,  the  flesh  livid,  and  looking  as  if,  should 
you  touch  it  with  your  hand,  it  would  feel  cold. 
With  this  rigid  body  a  powerful  contrast  is  pro- 
duced by  the  vivacious  attitudes,  the  youthful 
faces,  the  bright,  attentive  eyes,  full  of  thought, 
of  the  disciples,  revealing  in  different  degrees  the 
avidity  for  knowledge,  the  joy  of  learning,  curios- 
ity, wonder,  the  strength  of  intelligence,  the  sus- 
pense of  the  mind.  The  master  has  the  tranquil 
face,  the  serene  eye,  and  the  almost  smiling  lip 
of  one  who  feels  the  complacency  of  knowledge. 
There  is  in  the  complexion  of  the  group  an  air  of 
mystery,  gravity,  and  scientific  solemnity,  which 
inspires  reverence  and  silence. 


EEMBRANDT.  293 

"  The  contrast  between  the  light  and  shadow  is 
as  marvellous  as  that  between  life  and  death.  It 
is  all  done  with  extraordinary  finish ;  one  can 
count  the  folds  of  the  ruffs,  the  lines  of  the  face, 
the  hairs  of  the  beards.  It  is  said  that  the  fore- 
shortening of  the  corpse  is  wrong,  and  that  in 
some  poincs  the  finish  runs  into  dryness,  but  uni- 
versal judgment  places  the  'Lesson  in  Anatomy' 
among  the  greatest  triumphs  of  human  genius. 

"  Rembrandt  was  only  twenty-six  years  old  when 
he  painted  this  picture,  which,  therefore,  belongs 
to  his  first  manner,  in  which  there  are  not  yet 
apparent  that  fire  and  audacity,  that  sovereign 
security  in  his  own  genius,  which  shine  in  the 
works  of  his  maturer  years :  but  there  is  already 
that  luminous  potency,  that  marvellous  chiaroscuro, 
that  magic  of  contrasts,  which  form  the  most  origi- 
nal trait  of  his  genius." 

I  remember,  in  standing  before  this  picture,  to 
have  had  the  same  "  repulsion "  of  which  Amicis 
speaks.  How  differently  one  feels  before  that 
other  marvel  of  the  Hague,  Paul  Potter's  "  Bull," 
so  at  one  with  nature,  so  tender,  so  restful !  What 
wonder  that  it  once  hung  in  the  Louvre,  beside 
the  "Transfiguration"  of  Raphael,  the  "St.  Peter 
Martyr,"  of  Titian,  and  the  "Communion  of  St. 
Jerome  "  by  Domenichino  ? 

During  this  year,  1632,  Rembrandt  executed 
several  portraits  of  men ;  the  "  Rape  of  Proser- 
pine," in  the  Berlin  Gallery ;  "  Moses  saved  from 
the  Nile ; "  "  Christ  and  Nicodemus ; "  the  "  Oriental 


294  REMBRANDT. 

Standing,"  in  the  gallery  of  the  King  of  Holland ; 
the  "  Betrothed  Jewess ; "  the  "  Eape  of  Euvopa ; " 
and  portraits  of  six  women.  His  etchings  this 
year  were,  "  A  Man  on  Horseback,"  "  Cottage  with 
White  Palings "  his  first  landscape,  "  Seller  of 
Rat's  Poison,"  "  Jesus  being  carried  to  the  Tomb/' 
and  the  "  Resurrection  of  Lazarus." 

In  the  following  year  he  painted  "  Susannah 
Surprised  by  the  Elders,"  Avhich  is  now  in  Russia ; 
"  The  Boat  of  St.  Peter,"  a  powerful  conception, 
showing  dark  storm-shadows  surrounding  the  sea- 
tossed  bark,  with  a  high  light  thrown  on  the  nearer 
mountain-like  waves  and  on  the  men  at  the  sails ; 
"  The  Elevation  of  the  Cross,"  and  "  The  Descent 
from  the  Cross,"  bought  by  Prince  Frederick  Henry 
of  Holland,  and  now  in  Munich ;  "  The  Good  Samar- 
itan," now  in  Sir  Richard  Wallace's  collection ; 
"The  Philosophers  in  Meditation,"  two  delicate 
pictures,  now  in  the  Louvre;  "The  Master  Ship- 
builder and  his  Pipe,"  now  at  Buckingham  Palace, 
sold  for  sixteen  thousand  five  hundred  francs,  in 
1810 ;  portraits  of  Madame  Grotius,  a  youth  at 
Dresden,  another  in  the  Pourtales  Collection,  sold 
for  seven  thousand  dollars  in  1865;  and  no  less 
than  sixteen  others,  besides  many  etchings.  One 
of  these  portraits,  that  of  a  young  boy,  was  bought 
by  J.  de  Rothschild,  in  1865,  for  five  thousand 
dollars ;  and  a  portrait  of  Saskia,  now  at  Cassel, 
for  ten  thousand  dollars. 

Of  the  picture  of  Saskia  in  the  Dresden  Museum, 
painted  this  year,  Professor  Mollett  says :  "  The 


REMBRANDT.  295 

head  in  this  portrait  is  slightly  inclined,  the  long 
chestnut  curls  are  covered  by  a  cherry-colored 
bonnet  ornamented  with  white  feathers.  The 
light  falling  on  the  figure  from  above  illuminates 
the  rim  of  the  bonnet  and  the  lower  part  of  the 
face,  while  the  forehead  is  covered  by  the  shadow 
thrown  by  the  hat." 

Of  the  large  portrait  in  the  Cassel  Gallery, 
painted  the  same  year,  he  says  :  "  In  this  picture 
Saskia  is  very  richly  dressed,  and  covered  with  a 
profusion  of  pearls  and  precious  stones.  The  face, 
a  delicate  profile  of  a  bright,  fresh  color,  drawn 
against  a  dark  brown  background,  is  entirely  in 
the  light,  almost  without  shadows." 

The  portrait  of  her  in  the  late  Fesch  Gallery, 
says  Sweetser.  "  displays  the  maiden's  snowy  com- 
plexion, great  deep  eyes,  rosy  lips,  and  rich  auburn 
hair,  adorned  with  white  and  green  plumes,  and 
wearing  pearls  on  her  neck,  and  a  chain  of  gold  on 
her  green  silk  mantilla." 

Who  was  Saskia?  The  lovely  and  beautiful 
woman  whose  life  was  to  Kembrandt  like  the 
transcendent  light  he  threw  into  his  pictures ; 
whose  death  left  him  forever  in  the  shadow  of 
shadows,  which  he,  of  all  painters,  knew  best  how 
to  paint. 

Saskia  van  Ulenburgh  was  the  orphan  daughter 
of  Eombertus  Ulenburgh,  a  Frisian  lawyer  of 
high  standing,  envoy  from  Friesland  to  the  court 
of  William  of  Orange.  She  was  wealthy,  of  lovely 
character,  and  attractive  in  face  and  in  manner. 


296  REMBRANDT. 

Her  brother-in-law,  the  painter  Nijbrand  de  Geest, 
was  a  man  of  influence,  and  her  cousin,  Hendrik 
Ulenburgh,  was  the  publisher  of  Rembrandt's  en- 
gravings. They  therefore  naturally  met  each 
other.  She  was  young  and  of  distinguished 
family ;  the  young  artist,  who  fell  in  love  with  her, 
had  his  genius  alone  to  offer  her. 

The  devoted  love  of  Rembrandt  won  the  happy- 
hearted,  refined  Saskia.  They  were  married  June 
5,  1634,  when  she  was  twenty-one  and  Rembrandt 
twenty-seven,  and  went  to  live  in  his  pleasant 
home  in  Amsterdam. 

The  next  eight  years  were  given  to  arduous 
work,  blessed  by  the  well-nigh  omnipotent  influ- 
ence of  a  seemingly  perfect  love.  In  his  marriage 
year  he  painted  "  Queen  Artemisia,"  now  in 
Madrid;  "The  Incredulity  of  St.  Thomas,"  now  at 
the  Hermitage ;  "  Repentance  of  Peter,"  "  Judas 
and  the  Blood  Money ; "  a  larger  "  Descent  from  the 
Cross,"  now  at  St.  Petersburg;  "Rev.  Mr.  Ellison 
and  Wife  of  the  English  Church  at  Amsterdam," 
sold  in  London,  in  1860,  for  about  nine  thousand 
dollars ;  several  portraits  of  himself  and  several  of 
Saskia.  In  the  large  "Jewish  Wife,"  in  "Bath- 
sheba  receiving  David's  Message,"  in  the  long 
lost  "  Vertumnus  and  Pomona,"  Saskia,  the  be- 
loved Saskia,  is  always  the  model. 

At  the  same  time  were  made  five  sketches  and 
sixteen  engravings,  the  most  notable  being  "  The 
Annunciation  to  the  Shepherds."  "This,"  says 
Professor  Mollett,  "  is  a  night  effect,  with  a  mass 


REMBRANDT.  297 

of  trees  on  the  right  haiid,  and  a  distance  in  which 
a  city  is  seen,  with  its  factories  and  bridges  in  a 
nest  of  foliage,  and  fires  reflected  in  water.  In 
the  foreground  the  shepherds  and  their  flocks  are 
alarmed  by  the  sudden  appearance  of  the  celestial 
glory,  in  the  luminous  circles  of  which  thousands 
of  cherubim  are  flying ;  an  angel  is  advancing,  and, 
with  the  right  hand  raised,  is  announcing  the 
news  to  the  shepherds.  The  whole  composition 
is  wonderful  for  the  energy  it  displays,  and  ap- 
pears as  if  it  had  been  thrown  on  the  copper  with 
swift,  nervous,  inspired  touches,  but  always  accu- 
rate and  infallible." 

In  1635  a  son  was  born  to  Eembrandt  and  Saskia, 
named  Eombertus,  after  her  father,  but  the  child 
soon  died,  the  first  shadow  in  the  famous  artist's 
home.  This  year  he  painted  "  Samson  menacing 
his  Father-in-law,"  now  in  the  Berlin  Museum ;  the 
"  Eape  of  Ganymede,"  now  at  Dresden ;  "  Christ 
driving  out  the  Money-changers ;  "  "  The  Martyr- 
dom of  St.  Stephen ; "  in  all,  eight  portraits,  seven 
other  paintings,  nine  designs,  and  twenty-three 
etchings.  One  of  the  most  attractive  of  the  pic- 
tures about  this  time  is  Kembrandt  at  home,  with 
Saskia,  life-size,  and  full  of  happiness,  seated  upon 
his  knee. 

Three  scenes  from  the  history  of  Tobias  follow. 
The  first,  the  blind  father  awaiting  his  son's  return, 
is  in  the  Berlin  Museum ;  the  second  contains 
Tobias  and  his  wife  seated  in  a  chamber ;  the  third 
illustrates  Tobias  restoring  sight  to  his  father. 


298  REMBKANDT. 

In  1636  he  painted  "  The  Entombment,"  " The 
Resurrection,"  and  "The  Ascension,"  companion 
pictures  to  the  "  Crucifixion "  painted  for  Prince 
Frederick  Henry  four  years  previously ;  "  The 
Repose  in  Egypt,"  now  at  Aix-la-Chapelle  ;  "  The 
Ascension,"  in  the  Munich  Pinakothek ;  "  Samson 
blinded  by  the  Philistines,  with  Delilah  in  Flight ; " 
and  "  St.  Paul,"  in  the  Vienna  Belvidere,  besides 
three  portraits  and  ten  etchings. 

The  finest  etching  of  this  period  was  "Ecce 
Homo,"  a  marvellous  composition,  consisting  of  an 
immense  number  of  figures  admirably  disposed. 
Our  Lord  is  seen  in  front  standing,  surrounded  by 
guards.  His  eyes  are  raised  to  heaven,  his  hands 
are  manacled  and  clasped  together,  and  on  his 
head  is  the  crown  of  thorns.  "  It  is,"  says  Mol- 
lett,  "  one  of  the  painter's  grandest  works." 

"The  'Ecce  Homo,'"  says  Wilmot  Buxton,  "to 
say  nothing  of  the  splendor,  the  light  and  shade 
and  richness  of  execution,  has  never  been  sur- 
passed for  dramatic  expression ;  and  we  forgive 
the  commonness  of  form  and  type,  in  the  expres- 
sion of  touching  pathos  in  the  figure  of  the  Saviour ; 
nor  would  it  be  possible  to  express  with  greater 
intensity  the  terrible  raging  of  the  crowd,  the  igno- 
bly servile  and  cruel  supplications  of  the  priests,  or 
the  anxious  desire  to  please  on  the  part  of  Pilate." 

The  following  year,  "  The  Lord  of  the  Vineyard," 
now  in  the  Hermitage,  was  painted,  representing  the 
master  in  a  chamber  flooded  with  light,  listening 
to  the  complaints  of  the  laborers;  "Abraham 


REMBRANDT.  299 

sending  away  Hagar  and  Ishniael ;  "  and  several 
portraits  of  himself  and  Saskia.  Now  she  is 
seated  at  a  table  face  to  face  with  her  husband, 
her  blue  eyes  looking  pleased  and  happy  into  his  ; 
now  they  walk  liand  in  hand  in  a  beautiful  land- 
scape. 

In  July,  1638,  a  second  child  gladdened  the 
Rembrandt  household,  this  time  a  daughter,  named 
Cornelia  after  the  artist's  mother.  In  less  than 
four  weeks  she  passed  out  of  Saskia's  arms,  leaving 
them  again  childless.  Rembrandt's  father  had 
died  six  years  before,  and  of  his  brothers  and  sis- 
ters, Gerrit,  Machteld,  and  Cornelis  were  dead 
also.  Still  the  painter  worked  on  bravely,  for  did 
he  not  have  the  one  inspiration  that  gave  almost 
superhuman  power  to  overcome  obstacles,  and 
made  work  a  pleasure,  —  the  love  of  his  blue-eyed 
Saskia  ? 

During  this  year  some  lawsuits  occurred  in  the 
family  over  her  property,  and  Rembrandt  sued 
some  of  her  relatives  for  slander,  because  they  had 
insinuated  that  Saskia  "  has  squandered  her  heritage 
in  ornaments  and  ostentation."  How  little  the  Fries- 
land  people  knew  of  the  poetry  of  the  painter's 
heart,  which,  for  the  love  he  bore  Saskia,  decked, 
with  his  rich  imagination,  every  picture  of  her 
with  more  than  royal  necklaces,  and  covered  her 
robes  with  priceless  gems,  because  she  was  his  idol ! 

This  year,  1638,  he  painted  the  great  picture 
"The  Feast  of  Ahasuerus,"  or  "The  Wedding  of 
Samson,"  now  at  Dresden,  where  at  the  middle  of 


300  REMBRANDT. 

the  table  sits  the  joyous  queen,  Esther  or  Delilah, 
robed  in  white  silk,  and  richly  jewelled,  of  course 
with  Saskia's  face ;  "  Christ  as  a  Gardener,"  long 
owned  by  the  Prince  of  Hesse-Cassel,  presented  to 
Josephine  at  Malmaison,  and  bought  by  George  IV. 
for  Buckingham  Palace,  where  it  still  remains ; 
"  Joseph  telling  his  Dream ; "  "  The  Little  Jewish 
Bride,'-'  representing  St.  Catherine  and  her  wheel 
of  martyrdom  (the  hair,  the  pearls,  the  face  are 
all  Saskia's),  and  other  works. 

The  next  year  among  his  many  superb  portraits 
are  three  of  his  mother :  one  in  Vienna,  painted 
a  year  before  her  death,  in  a  furred  cloak,  resting 
her  folded  hands  on  a  staff ;  another  with  a  red 
shawl  on  her  head ;  and  still  another  seated,  with 
her  hands  joined ;  —  both  the  latter  in  the  Hermit- 
age. He  also  finished  "The  Entombment"  and 
"  The  Resurrection,"  begun  three  years  before. 
He  said,  "  These  two  pieces  are  now  finished  with 
much  of  study  and  of  zeal,  .  .  .  because  it  is  in 
these  that  I  have  taken  care  to  express  the  utmost 
of  naturalness  and  action  ;  and  this  is  the  principal 
reason  why  I  have  been  occupied  so  long  on  them." 
He  urged  that  they  be  hung  in  a  strong  light,  for 
he  said,  "  A  picture  is  not  made  to  be  smelt  of. 
The  odor  of  the  colors  is  unhealthy." 

He  etched  "The  Death  of  the  Virgin,"  "The 
Presentation,"  "Youth  surprised  by  Death,"  and 
others. 

The  next  year,  1640,  a  baby's  voice  was  again 
heard  in  the  handsome  Rembrandt  home,  a  little 


REMBRANDT.  301 

daughter  named,  for  the  second  time,  Cornelia,  but 
in  a  few  short  months  the  household  was  again 
stricken  by  death. 

Rembrandt's  activity  was  now  marvellous.  In 
the  next  two  years  he  painted  "  Le  Doreur,"  a  por- 
trait of  his  artist  friend  Domer,  which  was  sold  in 
1865  for  over  thirty  thousand  dollars ;  it  is  also 
called  "  The  Gilder,"  and  is  now  in  the  Metropolitan 
Museum  of  Art  in  New  York  ;  the  portrait  of  an 
aged  woman,  purchased  ii  1868  for  the  Narishkine 
Collection,  for  eleven  thousand  dollars ;  "  Woman 
with  the  Fan,"  of  Buckingham  Palace ;  the  myste- 
rious "Witch  of  Endor,"  Schonborn  Gallery  in 
1867,  for  five  thousand  dollars ;  "  The  Carpenter's 
Household,"  now  in  the  Louvre,  representing 
Joseph  at  work,  with  the  tender  mother  nursing 
her  child ;  "  The  Salutation,"  in  the  Grosvenor  Gal- 
lery ;  "Susannah  at  the  Bath;"  "The  Offering 
of  Manoah,"  at  the  Dresden  Museum,  showing 
Manoah  and  his  wife  prostrate  before  the  altar, 
from  which  an  angel  crowned  with  flowers  is 
ascending;  a  magnificent  portrait  of  himself  at 
thirty,  in  the  National  Gallery,  in  a  black  cap  and 
fur  robe,  his  arms  crossed  on  a  window-sill ;  six- 
teen fine  etchings,  among  them  three  lion-hunts, 
the  preacher  Anslo  and  his  wife  seated  at  a  book- 
laden  table ;  several  exquisite  portraits  of  ladies, 
and  two  of  the  beloved  Saskia :  one  is  full  of  life 
and  health,  with  the  sweetest  expression,  and  care- 
fully finished ;  the  other,  in  1642,  is  richly  dressed, 
but  the  face  is  delicate  and  dreamy,  like  that  of 


302  REMBRANDT. 

one  who  may  have  received  a  message  from  the 
unseen  world. 

Professor  Mollett  says  of  these,  "  The  first  rep- 
resents Saskia  in  all  the  freshness  of  her  beauty, 
seen  through  the  prism  of  love  and  art;  in  her 
rich  dress,  fresh  color,  and  bright  smile,  bearing  a 
strong  resemblance  to  the  Saskia  on  her  husband's 
knee.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  a  more  charming 
and  amiable  face,  or  a  portrait  more  happy  in 
color  and  expression.  The  work  is  very  carefully 
finished  without  being  minute,  the  tone  profound, 
the  touch  broad  and  melting.  No  greater  contrast 
can  be  conceived  to  this  picture  bathed  in  light, 
radiant  with  happiness  and  health,  than  the 
'  Saskia '  of  Antwerp.  This  portrait  has  an  inde- 
finable charm.  The  very  soul  of  the  painter  seems 
to  have  entered  into  the  picture,  to  which  a  melan- 
choly interest  is  attached.  It  bears  the  same  date 
as  the  year  of  Saskia's  death,  1642.  The  face  no 
longer  shows  the  serene  beauty  of  youth  and 
strength,  but  its  etherealized  and  delicate  features 
have  a  thoughtful  and  dreamy  expression.  It  was 
probably  painted  from  memory,  after  Saskia's 
death." 

In  September,  1641,  a  son  was  born  to  Saskia, 
Titus,  named  for  her  sister  Titia  van  Ulenburgh. 
The  latter  died  the  same  year.  On  the  19th  of 
the  next  June,  Saskia  was  buried  from  the  Oude 
Kerk  in  Amsterdam,  leaving  her  son,  not  a  year 
old,  and  her  husband,  to  whom  her  loss  was  irrep- 
arable. 


REMBRANDT.  803 

This  year  he  had  completed  his  greatest  work, 
"The  Night  Watch,"  now  in  the  Amsterdam 
Museum,  and  stood  at  the  very  zenith  of  his  fame. 
From  this  time,  while  he  did  much  remarkable 
work,  he  seems  like  a  man  on  a  mountain  top, 
looking  on  one  side  to  sweet  meadows  filled  with 
flowers  and  sunlight,  and  on  the  other  to  a  desolate 
landscape  over  which  a  clouded  sun  is  setting. 
With  Saskia  died  the  best  of  Rembrandt.  Before 
her  death  he  had  painted  various  pictures  of  him- 
self, all  joyous,  even  fantastic,  sometimes  as  a 
warrior,  sometimes  with  jewelled  robes  and  courtly 
attire.  Now  for  five  years  he  made  no  portrait  of 
himself,  and  then  one  simple  and  stern,  like  a  man 
who  lives  and  does  his  work  because  lie  must. 

"The  Night  Watch,"  or  the  "Sortie  of  the 
Banning  Cock  Company,"  represents  Captain 
Frans  Banning  Cock's  company  of  arquebusiers 
emerging  from  their  guild-house  on  the  Singel. 
Amicis  says  of  it,  "  It  is  more  than  a  picture  ;  it 
is  a  spectacle,  and  an  amazing  one.  All  the  French 
critics,  to  express  the  effect  which  it  produces, 
make  use  of  the  phrase,  '  C'est  ecrasant ! '  ('It  is 
overpowering  ! ' )  A  great  crowd  of  human  figures, 
a  great  light,  a  great  darkness  —  at  the  first  glance 
this  is  what  strikes  you,  and  for  a  moment  you 
know  not  where  to  fix  your  eyes  in  order  to  com- 
prehend that  grand  and  splendid  confusion. 

"There  are  officers,  halberdiers,  boys  running, 
arquebusiers  loading  and  firing,  youths  beating 
drums,  people  bowing,  talking,  calling  out,  gestic- 


304  REMBRANDT. 

ulating  —  all  dressed  in  different  costumes,  with 
round  hats,  pointed  hats,  plumes,  casques,  morions, 
iron  gorgets,  linen  collars,  doublets  embroidered 
with  gold,  great  boots,  stockings  of  all  colors, 
arms  of  every  form ;  and  all  this  tumultuous  and 
glittering  throng  start  out  from  the  dark  back- 
ground of  the  picture  and  advance  towards  the 
spectator. 

"The  two  first  personages  are  Frans  Banning 
Cock,  Lord  of  Furmerland  and  Ilpendam,  captain  of 
the  company,  and  his  lieutenant,  Willem  van  Euij- 
tenberg,  Lord  of  Vlaardingen,  the  two  marching  side 
by  side.  The  only  figures  that  are  in  full  light  are 
this  lieutenant,  dressed  in  a  doublet  of  buffalo-hide, 
with  gold  ornaments,  scarf,  gorget,  and  white  plume, 
with  high  boots ;  and  a  girl  who  comes  behind, 
with  blond  hair  ornamented  with  pearls,  and  a 
yellow  satin  dress ;  all  the  other  figures  are  in  deep 
shadow,  excepting  the  heads,  which  are  illuminated. 
By  what  light  ?  Here  is  the  enigma.  Is  it  the 
light  of  the  sun  ?  or  of  the  moon  ?  or  of  the 
torches  ? 

"  There  are  gleams  of  gold  and  silver,  moon- 
light, colored  reflections,  fiery  lights;  personages 
which,  like  the  girl  with  blond  tresses,  seem  to 
shine  by  a  light  of  their  own  ;  faces  that  seem 
lighted  by  the  fire  of  a  conflagration;  dazzling 
scintillations,  shadows,  twilight,  and  deep  dark- 
ness, all  are  there,  harmonized  and  contrasted  with 
marvellous  boldness  and  insuperable  art.  ...  In 
spite  of  censure,  defects,  conflicting  judgments,  it 


REMBRANDT.  305 

has  been  there  for  two  centuries  triumphant  and 
glorious  ;  and  the  more  you  look  at  it,  the  more  it 
is  alive  and  glowing ;  and,  even  seen  only  at  a 
glance,  it  remains  forever  in  the  memory,  with  all 
its  mystery  and  splendor,  like  a  stupendous  vision." 

Charles  Blanc  says  of  the  picture :  "  To  tell  the 
truth,  this  is  only  a  dream  of  night,  and  no  one  can 
decide  what  the  light  is  that  falls  on  the  groups  of 
figures.  It  is  neither  the  light  of  the  sun  nor  of 
the  moon,  nor  does  it  come  from  torches ;  it  is 
rather  the  light  from  the  genius  of  Rembrandt." 

The  home  of  the  artist  at  that  time,  of  brick  and 
cut  stone,  four  stories  high,  on  one  of  the  quays  of 
the  river  Ainstel,  must  have  been  most  attractive 
and  happy  until  the  death  of  S.askia. 

Says  Mr.  Sweetser  :  "  The  house  still  stands,  and, 
by  the  aid  of  an  existing  legal  inventory  (dated 
1656),  we  can  even  refurnish  it  as  it  was  in  the 
days  of  Rembrandt.  Entering  the  vestibule,  we 
find  the  flagstone  paving  covered  with  fir-wood, 
with  black-cushioned  Spanish  chairs  for  those  who 
wait,  and  to  amuse  their  leisxire  several  busts  and 
twenty -four  paintings  —  four  each  by  Brouwer  and 
Lievens,  the  rest  mostly  by  Rembrandt. 

"  The  ante-chamber,  or  saloon,  was  a  large  room 
furnished  with  seven  Spanish  chairs  upholstered 
in  green  velvet,  a  great  walnut  table  covered  with 
Tournay  cloth,  an  ebony-framed  mirror,  and  a  mar- 
ble wine-cooler.  The  walls  were  covered  with 
thirty-nine  pictures,  many  of  which  were  in  mas- 
sive and  elegant  frames.  There  were  religious 


306  REMBRANDT. 

scenes,  landscapes,  architectural  sketches,  works  of 
Pinas,  Brouwer,  Lucas  van  Leyden,  and  other  Dutch 
masters;  sixteen  pictures  by  Kembrandt ;  and  costly 
paintings  by  Palma  Vecchio,  Bassano,  and  Raphael. 

"  The  next  room  was  a  perfect  little  museum  of 
art,  containing  a  profusion  of  the  master's  pictures, 
with  rare  works  of  Van  Leyden,  Van  Dyck,  Aart- 
gen,  Parsellis,  Seghers,  and  copies  from  Annibale 
Caracci.  The  oaken  press  and  other  furnishings 
indicated  that  the  marvellous  etchings  of  our  artist 
were  engraved  and  printed  here. 

"  The  next  saloon  was  the  gem  of  the  establish- 
ment, and  was  equipped  with  a  great  mirror,  an 
oaken  table  with  an  embroidered  cloth,  six  chairs 
with  blue  coverings,  a  bed  with  blue  hangings,  a 
cedar-wood  wardrobe,  and  a  chest  of  the  same  wood. 
The  walls  even  here  showed  the  profound  artistic 
taste  of  the  occupant,  for  they  were  overlaid  with 
twenty-three  pictures  by  Aartgen,  Lievens,  Se- 
ghers, and  other  northern  painters ;  The  (  Concordi,' 
'Resurrection,'  and  'EcceHomo'of  Rembrandt; 
a  Madonna  by  Raphael ;  and  Giorgione's  great 
picture  of  '  The  Samaritan.' 

"On  the  next  floor  the  master  had  his  studio 
and  museum.  The  great  art-chamber  contained 
materials  for  weeks  of  study  ;  the  walls  were  cov- 
ered with  rich  and  costly  bric-a-brac  —  statuettes  in 
marble,  porcelain,  and  plaster ;  the  Roman  emper- 
ors ;  busts  of  Homer,  Aristotle,  and  Socrates :  Chi- 
nese and  Japanese  porcelains  and  drawings ;  Vene- 
tian glass ;  casts  from  nature ;  curious  weapons  and 


REMBRANDT.  307 

armor,  with  a  shield  attributed  to  Queutin  Matsys ; 
minerals,  plants,  stuffed  birds,  and  shells ;  rare  fans, 
globes,  and  books.  Another  feature  was  a  noble 
collection  of  designs,  studies,  and  engravings,  fill- 
ing sixty  leather  portfolios,  and  including  speci- 
mens of  the  best  works  of  the  chief  Italian,  Ger- 
man, and  Dutch  artists  and  engravers. 

To  gain  this  beautiful  collection  of  works  of  art, 
Rembrandt  spared  no  money,  paying  eighty-six 
dollars  for  a  single  engraving  of  Lucas  van  Ley- 
den's,  and  fourteen  hundred  florins  for  fourteen 
proofs  from  the  same  painter. 

After  Saskia  died,  the  tide  of  fortune  seemed  to 
turn.  Several  artists  who  had  studied  in  Italy 
returned  to  Holland,  and  popularized  the  Italian 
style,  so  that  the  works  of  Rembrandt  seemed  to 
fade  somewhat  from  the  public  gaze.  With  pride 
and  sorrow  he  went  on  painting,  but  he  must  have 
been  deeply  wounded. 

In  1643  and  '44,  he  painted  "Bathsheba  at  the 
Bath."  "The  nude  figure  of  Bathsheba,"  says  Pro- 
fessor Mollett,  "  stands  out  in  a  dazzling  effect  of 
light  from  a  background  of  warm,  confused  shadows. 
The  figure  is  not  beautiful  to  a  sculptor's  eye,  nor 
in  the  Italian  style ;  but  in  animation,  in  the  flesh 
color,  and  in  the  modelling  it  is  superb.  The  har- 
mony of  the  tints  and  of  the  general  tone  is  very 
beautiful ;  tints  of  bronze  and  gold  combine  with 
shades  of  violet,  brown,  green,  and  yellow  ochre 
into  a  warm,  poetic,  and  mysterious  gamut.  '  This 
picture  should  be  hung  in  a  strong  light,  that  the 


308  REMBRANDT. 

eye  may  penetrate  into  the  shadows,'  said  Rem- 
brandt." 

The  other  works  of  this  time  were  the  "  Diana 
and  Endymion"  of  the  Liechtenstein  Gallery  at 
Vienna  ;  "  Philemon  and  Baucis  ;  "  the  "  Old 
Woman  Weighing  Gold,"  now  in  the  Dresden 
Museum ;  "  The  Woman  taken  in  Adultery,"  which 
brought  thirty  thousand  dollars  at  public  sale,  and 
is  now  in  the  English  National  Gallery ;  a  portrait 
of  Jan  Cornelis  Sylvius,  which  was  sold  in  1872 
for  nearly  eight  thousand  dollars,  and  the  "  Burgo- 
master Six  "  for  six  thousand  dollars.  The  latter 
was  the  portrait  of  Jan  Six,  a  young  patrician,  an 
enthusiastic  student  and  poet,  married  to  Margaret 
the  daughter  of  the  famous  surgeon  Dr.  Tulp. 

Other  pictures  in  the  next  few  years  were  "  The 
Tribute  Money ; "  the  "  Burgomaster  Pancras  giving 
a  Collar  of  Pearls  to  his  Wife,"  now  owned  by 
Queen  Victoria ;  "  Abraham  receiving  the  Three 
Angels ;  "  two  paintings  of  the  "  Adoration  of  the 
Shepherds,"  one  now  in  Munich  and  one  in  the  Na- 
tional Gallery ;  "  The  Good  Samaritan,"  and  "  The 
Pilgrims  of  Emmaus,"  now  in  the  Louvre ;  and  "  The 
Peace  of  the  Land,"  celebrating  the  peace  of  West- 
phalia, now  in  the  Boymans  Museum  at  Rotterdam. 
"  It  represents  the  enclosure  of  a  fortress,  the  walls 
of  which  are  visible  in  the  right-hand  background, 
where  cannons  are  blazing  and  a  group  of  soldiers 
tighting ;  the  right-hand  foreground  is  entirely 
occupied  by  a  group  of  horsemen,  of  remarkable 
vigor  and  truth ;  on  the  left  are  two  thrones,  on 


REMBRANDT.  309 

one  of  which  leans  a  figure  of  Justice,  clasping  her 
hands  as  if  in  supplication.  The  centre,  which  is 
in  the  light,  is  occupied  by  a  couchant  lion  growl- 
ing, his  one  paw  on  a  bundle  of  arrows,  the  symbol 
of  the  United  Provinces.  The  lion  is  bound  by 
two  chains,  the  one  attached  to  the  thrones,  the 
other  fastened  to  an  elevation,  bearing  on  a  shield 
the  arras  of  Amsterdam,  surrounded  by  the  words, 
'  Soli  Deo  Gloria.'  " 

"  Samuel  taught  by  his  Mother,"  "  Christ  appear- 
ing to  Mary,"  "The  Prophetess  Anna,"  " Jesus 
blessing  Little  Children,"  purchased  for  the  Na- 
tional Gallery  for  thirty-five  thousand  dollars ;  — 
"  The  Bather,"  in  the  National  Gallery,  of  which 
Landseer  says :  "  It  is  the  most  artful  thing  ever 
done  in  painting,  and  the  most  unsophisticated ; " 
a  likeness  of  Rembrandt's  son  Titus,  now  twelve 
years  old,  were  his  next  works.  Fifty-seven  etch- 
ings were  made  between  1649  and  1655,  the  most 
celebrated  being  the  "  Hundred-Guilder  Print,"  or 
"  Jesus  healing  the  Sick." 

"The  subject  of  this  etching  is  taken  from  the 
words,  '  And  Jesus  went  about  all  Galilee,  preach- 
ing the  gospel  of  the  kingdom,  and  healing  all 
manner  of  sickness  and  all  manner  of  disease 
among  the  people.'  The  serene  and  calm  figure 
of  Jesus  stands  out  from  the  shadow  of  the  back- 
ground, preaching  to  the  people  around  him.  By 
a  superb  antithesis,  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees, 
the  priests  and  the  curious  and  unbelieving,  are 
standing  on  Christ's  right  hand,  bathed  in  light, 


310  REMBRANDT. 

while  from  the  shadows  that  envelop  the  left  side 
of  the  picture  are  coming  the  sick,  the  possessed, 
and  unfortunates  of  all  kinds.  The  composition  is 
full  of  feeling,  drawn  and  executed  with  a  rare 
genius,  the  details  revealing  a  world  of  expression 
and  character :  the  lights  and  shadows,  disposed 
in  large  masses,  are  of  wonderful  softness.  The 
etching,  commenced  with  aqua-fortis,  is  finished 
with  the  dry  point,  the  silvery  neutral  tints  of 
Christ's  robe  and  the  soft  shadows  being  produced 
in  this  manner." 

Frederick  Wedmore  says  in  his  "  Masters  of 
Genre-Painting,"  "  I  should  be  thankful  for  the 
'  Hundred-Guilder  Print,'  were  it  only  because 
of  the  half-dozen  lines  in  which  Rembrandt  has 
etched  one  figure,  to  me  the  central  one,  a  tall 
man,  old  and  spare,  and  a  little  bent,  with  drooped 
arms,  and  hands  clasped  together  in  gesture  of 
mild  awe  and  gently  felt  surprise,  as  of  one  from 
whose  slackened  vitality  the  power  of  great  sur- 
prise or  of  very  keen  interest  has  forever  gone. 
On  his  face  there  is  the  record  of  much  pain,  of 
sufferings  not  only,  his  own,  not  only  of  the  body, 
but  of  saddening  experiences  which  have  left  him 
quelled  and  forever  grave." 

The  name  arose  from  the  fact  that  a  Roman 
merchant  gave  Rembrandt  for  one  engraving  seven 
Marc  Antonio  engravings,  which  were  valued  at  a 
hundred  guilders,  and  the  artist  would  never  sell 
any  of  these  pictures  below  this  price.  Only  eight 
impressions  of  the  first  plate  are  in  existence ;  two 


REMBRANDT.  311 

are  in  the  British  Museum,  one  is  in  Paris,  one  in 
Amsterdam,  one  in  Vienna,  one  in  the  collection  of 
the  Duke  of  Buccleuch,  one  in  Mr.  Holford's,  and 
one  owned  by  M.  Eugene  Dutuit  of  Rouen,  sold 
in  1867  for  about  six  thousand  dollars. 

When  Saskia  died,  she  left  her  property  —  she 
had  brought  Rembrandt  forty  thousand  florins — to 
her  infant  son  Titus,  with  the  condition  that  her 
husband  should  have  the  use  of  the  money  until 
his  death  or  his  second  marriage.  If  the  boy 
died.  Rembrandt  was  to  receive  the  whole  estate, 
save  in  case  of  a  second  marriage,  when  half  should 
go  to  her  sister. 

Already  Saskia's  friends  saw  the  money  passing 
away  from  the  artist,  and  they  brought  suits  for 
Titus's  sake,  to  recover  it.  Finally,  in  1656,  he 
transferred  his  house  and  land  to  Titus,  with  the 
privilege  of  remaining  there  during  the  pleasure  of 
Saskia's  relatives. 

Matters  did  not  improve,  and  the  following  year 
all  the  rich  collection  of  art  works  and  household 
goods  were  sold  by  auction  to  meet  the  demands 
of  creditors.  The  next  year  his  engravings  and 
designs  were  sold  in  the  same  way,  and  the  year 
following  the  house  was  disposed  of,  Rembrandt 
being  allowed  to  remove  two  stoves  only  and  some 
screens.  These  must  have  been  bitter  days  for 
the  once  happy  artist.  It  was  fortunate  that  Saskia 
did  not  live  to  see  such  a  direful  change. 

During  all  the  struggle  and  disgrace  Rembrandt 
kept  on  working.  In  1656  and  '57  he  painted  for 


312  REMBRANDT. 

the  Surgeons'  Guild,  a  large  picture,  "Lesson  on 
Anatomy  of  Joan  Deyman,"  containing  the  portraits 
of  nine  celebrated  doctors ;  "  St.  John  the  Baptist 
Preaching,"  a  canvas  with  over  one  hundred  small 
figures ;  "  The  Adoration  of  the  Magi,"  now  in 
Buckingham  Palace  and  greatly  admired;  "Joseph 
accused  by  Potiphar's  Wife,"  and  "Jacob  blessing 
Ephraim  and  Manasseh." 

Professor  Mollett  says  that  the  "Jacob"  "be- 
longs as  much  to  all  times  and  all  nations  as  the 
masterpieces  of  Greek  sculpture.  This  touching 
scene,  which  is  simply  rendered  with  all  the  power 
of  Rembrandt's  art,  represents  the  aged  patriarch 
extending  his  hands,  which  Joseph  is  guiding, 
towards  the  boys,  who  are  kneeling  before  him. 
Behind  the  bed  stands  their  mother,  Asenath,  with 
clasped  hands.  The  light  falling  from  behind 
Jacob,  on  the  left,  leaves  his  face  in  the  shade. 
His  head  is  covered  by  a  yellowish  cap,  bordered 
with  clear-colored  fur ;  the  sleeve  of  the  right  arm 
is  of  a  beautiful  gray ;  the  hand  painted  with 
large,  broad  touches.  The  bed  is  covered  with  a 
sheet  and  a  counterpane  of  pale  red  and  fawn 
color. 

"  Joseph  wears  a  turban,  and  his  wife  a  high  cap, 
long  veil,  and  robe  of  gray  and  fawn-colored  brown. 
The  fair  child  has  a  yellow  vest ;  and  his  head, 
bright  with  reflected  lights,  is  very  fine  in  tone, 
and  of  extreme  delicacy.  We  see  the  colors  here 
employed  are  gray  and  fawn-colored  brown,  which, 
in  the  highest  notes,  only  reach  subdued  red  or 


REMBRANDT.  313 

yellow.  The  whole  bears  a  mysterious  air;  in  a 
fine  and  luminous  light,  filled  with  tones  and  half- 
tones that  are  indefinable.  The  touch  is  of  such 
surpassing  boldness  and  ease,  that,  when  viewed  in 
detail,  the  picture  might  be  called  a  sketch,  if  the 
harmony  and  completeness  of  the  whole  did  not 
indicate  the  maturity  and  profundity  of  the  work." 

After  Rembrandt's  home  was  sold,  he  hired  a 
house  on  the  Rosengracht,  a  retired  but  respect- 
able part  of  the  city,  two  blocks  away  from  the 
Bloemgracht,  where  he  began  life  with  his  beloved 
Saskia.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  he  gathered  admiring 
pupils  about  him,  and  kept  diligently  at  his  work. 
It  is  probable  that  he  was  married  at  this  time,  or 
later,  for  in  1663  he  painted  a  picture  known  as 
"  Rembrandt  and  his  Family,"  now  in  the  Bruns- 
wick Museum,  where  a  rosy  and  smiling  lady  is 
seated  with  a  child  on  her  lap,  while  two  little 
girls  of  perhaps  five  and  seven  stand  by  her.  The 
man  with  brown  hair  stands  on  the  left,  giving  a 
flower  to  one  of  the  girls. 

Rembrandt's  chief  works  now  were  "  Moses  de- 
scending from  Sinai,  and  breaking  the  Tables  of 
the  Law,"  "  Jacob  wrestling  with  the  Angels," 
a  striking  picture  of  "Ziska  and  his  Adherents 
swearing  to  avenge  the  Death  of  Huss,"  and 
"The  Syndics  of  the  Guild  of  Clothmakers," 
now  in  the  Amsterdam  Museum. 

Professor  Springer  writes  concerning  the  latter 
picture,  the  "  School  of  Anatomy,"  and  "  The  Night 
Watch  :  "  "  Art  has  never  again  created  a  greater 


314  REMBRANDT. 

wealth  of  stirring  imagery  or  poetry  of  color  so 
entrancing  as  these  three  pictures  reveal  to  us. 
Unconsciously  our  thoughts  return  to  Shakspeare's 
familiar  creations,  and  we  recognize  in  these  two 
mighty  art  champions  of  the  north  kindred  natures 
and  a  corresponding  bent  of  fancy." 

In  1668,  Titus,  now  twenty-seven  years  old, — 
he  studied  painting,  but  became  a  merchant,  — was 
married  to  his  cousin  Magdalena  van  Loo,  one  of 
the  Frisian  families,  and  died  in  September  of  the 
same  year.  The  next  March,  his  widow  bore  a 
daughter  who  received  the  name  of  Titia,  for  her 
dead  father.  Magdalena  died  in  the  same  year  in 
which  her  child  was  born.  Thus  frequently  did 
sorrow  shadow  the  path  of  the  great  master  of 
shadows. 

This  year,  Rembrandt  painted  several  portraits 
of  himself.  "  In  that  of  the  Pitti  Palace,  we  see 
him  wrapped  in  fur,  a  medal  is  hung  about  his 
neck,  and  he  is  wearing  a  close-fitting  cap,  from 
which  his  ample  white  hair  escapes.  His  face  is 
furrowed  with  age,  but  the  brightness  of  the  eye 
is  not  diminished.  .  .  . 

"In  the  splendid  portrait  in  the  Double  Collection 
at  Rouen,  he  again  stands  before  us,  with  bending 
attitude  and  slightly  inclined  head,  in  theatrical 
costume,  with  his  maulstick  in  his  hand,  laughing 
heartily.  And  this  is  Rembrandt's  farewell !  His 
face  is  wrinkled  across  and  across  by  time  and 
care,  but  it  is  no  gloomy  misanthrope  crushed  by 
evil  fortune  whom  we  see,  but  the  man  who 


REMBRANDT.  315 

opposed  to  all  fortunes  the  talisman  of  Labor,  and 
thus  paints  the  secret  of  his  life  in  his  final  por- 
trait of  himself,  in  the  midst  of  his  work,  scorning 
destiny." 

A  year  after  Titus  died,  death  came  to  Rem- 
brandt, at  sixty-two.  He  was  buried  simply  in 
the  West  Church,  so  simply  that  the  registered 
expense  of  his  burial  is  fifteen  florins  ! 

His  power  of  work  was  marvellous.  He  painted 
over  six  hundred  and  twenty  pictures,  executed 
three  hundred  and  sixty-five  etchings,  besides  two 
hundred  and  thirty-seven  variations  of  these,  with 
hundreds  of  drawings  and  sketches  scattered  over 
Europe.  Among  the  best  known  etchings  are 
"Rembrandt's  Portrait  with  the  Sword,"  "Lazarus 
rising  from  the  Dead,"  the  "  Hundred-Florin  Plate," 
"  Annunciation,"  "  Ecce  Homo,"  "  The  Good  Samar- 
itan," "  The  Great  Descent  from  the  Cross,"  the 
landscape  with  the  mill,  and  that  with  the  three 
trees. 

That  he  was  a  man  of  great  depth  of  feeling  is 
shown  by  his  love  of  his  mother,  his  worship  of 
Saskia,  and  his  tenderness  to  his  brothers  and 
sisters  after  they  had  lost  their  fortunes.  He 
was  also  passionately  fond  of  nature  and  of 
animals.  Sweetser  tells  this  incident :  "  One  day  he 
was  making  a  portrait  group  of  a  notable  family, 
when  he  was  informed  that  his  favorite  monkey 
had  died.  The  grieving  artist  caused  the  body  to 
be  brought  to  the  studio,  and  made  its  portrait  on 
the  same  canvas  on  which  he  was  engaged.  The 


316  REMBRANDT. 

family,  aforesaid,  was  naturally  incensed  at  such 
an  interpolation,  and  demanded  that  it  should  be 
effaced;  but  Rembrandt  preferred  to  keep  the  whole 
work  himself,  and  let  his  patrons  seek  a  more 
accommodating  artist." 

Taine  pays  Rembrandt  this  glowing  tribute  in  his 
"Art  in  the  Netherlands : "  "Rembrandt,  constantly 
collecting  his  materials,  living  in  solitude  and 
borne  along  by  the  growth  of  an  extraordinary 
faculty,  lived,  like  our  Balzac,  a  magician  and  a 
visionary  in  a  world  fashioned  by  his  own  hand, 
and  of  which  he  alone  possessed  the  key.  Supe- 
rior to  all  painters  in  the  native  delicacy  and 
keenness  of  his  optical  perceptions,  he  compre- 
hended this  truth  and  adhered  to  it  in  all  its  con- 
sequence, —  that,  to  the  eye,  the  essence  of  a  visible 
object  consists  of  the  spot  (tache),  that  the  simplest 
color  is  infinitely  complex,  that  every  visual  sensa- 
tion is  the  product  of  its  elements  coupled  with  its 
surroundings,  that  each  object  on  the  field  of  sight 
is  but  a  single  spot  modified  by  others,  and  that 
in  this  wise  the  principal  feature  of  a  picture  is 
the  ever-present,  tremulous,  colored  atmosphere 
into  which  figures  are  plunged  like  fishes  in  the 
sea.  .  .  . 

"  Free  of  all  trammels  and  guided  by  the  keen 
sensibility  of  his  organs,  he  has  succeeded  in  por- 
traying in  man  not  merely  the  general  structure 
and  the  abstract  type  which  answers  for  classic 
art,  but  again  that  which  is  peculiar  and  profound 
in  the  individual,  the  infinite  and  indefinable  com- 


REMBRANDT.  317 

plications  of  the  moral  being,  the  whole  of  that 
changeable  imprint  which  concentrates  instanta- 
neously on  a  face  the  entire  history  of  a  soul,  and 
which  Shakespeare  alone  saw  with  an  equally  pro- 
digious lucidity. 

"  In  this  respect  he  is  the  most  original  of 
modern  artists,  and  forges  one  end  of  the  chain 
of  which  the  Greeks  forged  the  other ;  the  rest  of 
the  masters,  Florentine,  Venetian,  and  Flemish, 
stand  between  them  ;  and  when,  nowadays,  our 
over-excited  sensibility,  our  extravagant  curiosity 
in  the  pursuit  of  subtleties,  our  unsparing  search 
of  the  true,  our  divination  of  the  remote  and  the 
obscure  in  human  nature,  seeks  for  predecessors 
and  masters,  it  is  in  him  and  in  Shakespeare  that 
Balzac  and  Delacroix  are  able  to  find  them." 


SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS. 


TN  Plympton,  Devonshire,  July  16,  1723,  the 
^  great  English  painter,  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds, 
•was  born.  His  father,  Samuel,  and  his  grand- 
father, John,  were  both  ministers,  while  his  mother 
and  grandmother  were  both  daughters  of  clergy- 
men. 

Samuel  Reynolds  was  a  gentle,  kindly  man,  mas- 
ter of  the  grammar  school  at  Plympton,  supporting 
his  eleven  children  on  the  meagre  income  of  seven 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  year.  He  had  married 
Theophila  Potter,  when  she  was  twenty-three,  the 
lovely  daughter  of  a  lovely  young  mother,  Theoph- 
ila Baker,  who,  marrying  against  the  consent  of 
her  father,  was  disinherited  by  him,  and  at  the 
early  death  of  her  devoted  husband  wept  herself 
blind,  and  died  broken-hearted. 

Joshua,  the  seventh  child  of  Samuel  and  Theo- 
phila, was  a  thoughtful,  aspiring  boy,  who  cared 
more  for  drawing  than  for  Ovid,  and  spent  his 
early  years  in  copying  the  illustrations  from  "  Plu- 
tarch's Lives "  and  Jacob  Cats's  "  Book  of  Em- 
blems," which  his  grandmother,  on  his  father's 
side,  had  brought  with  her  from  Holland.  His 


SIR  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS. 


BIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  319 

sisters  were  also  fond  of  drawing,  and  as  pencils 
and  paper  could  not  be  afforded  in  the  minister's 
family,  they  drew  on  the  whitewashed  walls  of  a 
long  passage,  with  burnt  sticks.  The  boy's  sketches 
-were  the  poorest,  and  he  was  therefore  nicknamed 
"  the  clown." 

On  the  back  of  a  Latin  exercise,  the  lad  drew  a 
wall  with  a  window  in  it.  Under  it,  the  not  highly 
delighted  father,  who  wished  his  boy  to  be  a  learned 
doctor,  wrote :  "This  is  drawn  by  Joshua  in  school, 
out  of  pure  idleness."  But  when  in  his  eighth 
year  the  boy  made  a  fine  sketch  of  the  grammar- 
school  with  its  cloister,  having  studied  carefully 
the  Jesuit's  "Treatise  on  Perspective,"  the  aston- 
ished father  said,  "  Now,  this  exemplifies  what  the 
author  of  the  '  Perspective '  says  in  his  preface, 
'that,  by  observing  the  rules  laid  down  in  this 
book,  a  man  may  do  wonders ; '  for  this  is  won- 
derful." 

Joshua  was  fond  of  literary  composition,  and 
early  composed  some  rules  of  conduct  for  himself, 
which  influenced  him  through  life.  He  said,  "The 
great  principle  of  being  happy  in  this  world  is  not 
to  mind  or  be  affected  with  small  things,"  a  maxim 
which  he  carried  out  in  his  peaceful,  self-poised, 
and  remarkably  happy  life. 

"  If  you  take  too  much  care  of  yourself,  nature 
will  cease  to  take  care  of  you,"  he  said,  and  thus 
without  excessive  self-consciousness  he  did  his 
great  work  and  reaped  his  great  reward. 

A  book  did  for  Joshua  what  a  book  has  often 


320  SIR  JOSHUA    REYNOLDS. 

done  before,  became  an  inspiration,  and  therefore 
led  to  grand  results.  He  read  Richardson's  "  The- 
ory of  Painting,"  wherein  was  expressed  the  hope 
and  belief  that  there  was  a  future  for  England  in 
art.  "  No  nation  under  heaven  so  nearly  resembles 
the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans  as  we.  There  is  a 
haughty  courage,  an  elevation  of  thought,  a  great- 
ness of  taste,  a  love  of  liberty,  a  simplicity  and 
honesty  amongst  us  which  we  inherit  from  our  an- 
cestors, and  which  belong  to  us  as  Englishmen ; 
and  'tis  in  these  this  resemblance  consists.  ...  A 
time  may  come  when  future  writers  may  be  able  to 
add  the  name  of  an  English  painter.  .  .  I  am  no 
prophet,  nor  the  son  of  a  prophet,  but,  considering 
the  necessary  connection  of  causes  and  effects,  and 
upon  seeing  some  links  of  that  fatal  chain,  I  will 
venture  to  pronounce  (as  exceedingly  probable)  that 
if  ever  the  ancient,  great,  and  beautiful  taste  in 
painting  revives,  it  will  be  in  England  ;  but  not 
till  English  painters,  conscious  of  the  dignity  of 
their  country  and  of  their  profession,  resolve  to  do 
honor  to  both  by  Piety,  Virtue,  Magnanimity,  Be- 
nevolence, and  a  contempt  of  everything  that  is 
really  unworthy  of  them. 

"  And  now  I  cannot  forbear  wishing  that  some 
younger  painter  than  myself,  and  one  who  has  had 
greater  and  more  early  advantages,  would  practise 
the  magnanimity  I  have  recommended,  in  this 
single  instance  of  attempting  and  hoping  only  to 
equal  the  greatest  masters  of  Avhatsoever  age  or 
nation.  What  were  they  which  we  are  not  or  may 


SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  321 

not  be  ?  What  helps  had  any  of  them  which  we 
have  not  ?  " 

The  boy  Joshua  was  electrified  by  these  words. 
Perhaps  he  could  become  "  equal  to  the  greatest 
masters."  He  told  a  friend,  Edmond  Malone,  that 
this  book  so  delighted  and  inflamed  his  mind  "that 
Eaphael  appeared  to  him  superior  to  the  most  illus- 
trious names  of  ancient  or  modern  time." 

Young  Reynolds  painted  his  first  oil  painting, 
now  in  the  possession  of  Deble  Boger,  Esq.,  of 
Anthony,  near  Plymouth,  when  he  was  twelve 
years  old.  It  was  a  portrait  of  Rev.  Thomas 
Smart,  a  tutor  in  the  family  of  Lord  Edgcumbe. 
In  church,  while  Smart  was  preaching,  Joshua 
made  a  sketch  on  his  thumb-nail  of  the  minister. 
He  enlarged  this  sketch  in  a  boat-house,  using  part 
of  the  sail  for  his  canvas. 

Good  Samuel  Reynolds  began  to  wonder  whether 
a  boy  who  could  paint  at  twelve  would  make  a  suc- 
cessful apothecary,  and,  not  being  able  to  decide  the 
question  alone,  he  consulted  Mr.  Craunch.  This 
gentleman,  of  small  fortune,  resided  at  Plympton, 
and  was  the  father  of  pretty  Betsy  Craunch,  a  sweet- 
heart of  Peter  Pindar  (Dr.  Wolcot).  The  lad  him- 
self said,  "  he  would  rather  be  an  apothecary  than 
an  ordinary  painter ;  but  if  he  could  be  bound  to 
an  eminent  master,  he  should  choose  the  latter." 

Mr.  Craunch  advised  the  study  of  art,  and 
through  his  influence  and  that  of  his  friend,  a 
lawyer,  Mr.  Cutcliffe  of  Bideford,  the  lad  was  sent 
to  Thomas  Hudson,  the  principal  portrait  painter 


322  SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS. 

in  England,  living  in  Great  Queen  Street,  Lincoln's 
Inn,  London.  He  was  the  pupil  of  Kichardson, 
married  his  daughter,  and  thus  Reynolds  was 
brought  again  under  a  kindred  influence  to  that 
which  had  inspired  him  in  the  "  Theory  of  Paint- 
ing." 

Hudson  was  to  receive  six  hundred  dollars  for 
care  of  his  pupil,  half  of  which  was  loaned  by  a 
married  sister  till  he  should  be  able  to  repay  her. 
The  boy  made  drawings  from  ancient  statuary  and 
from  Guercino,  and  was  delighted  with  his  work, 
writing  home  to  his  father,  "While  I  air  doing 
this  I  am  the  happiest  creature  alive." 

One  morning,  while  purchasing  some  pictures  for 
Hudson  at  an  auction  room,  he  was  overjoyed  to 
see  a  great  poet,  Alexander  Pope,  enter  the  place, 
and  bow  to  the  crowd,  who  opened  a  passage  for 
him.  Among  others,  Pope  shook  hands  with  the 
ardent  young  artist.  He  described  the  poet  as 
"about  four  feet  six  inches  high;  very  hump- 
backed and  deformed.  He  wore  a  black  coat,  and, 
according  to  the  fashion  of  that  time,  had  on  a 
little  sword.  He  had  a  large  and  very  fine  eye, 
and  a  long,  handsome  nose :  his  mouth  had  those 
peculiar  marks  which  are  always  found  in  the 
mouths  of  crooked  persons,  and  the  muscles  which 
run  across  the  cheek  were  so  strongly  marked  that 
they  seemed  like  small  cords." 

Though  bound  to  Hudson  for  four  years,  at  the 
end  of  two  years  Joshua  was  dismissed,  ostensibly 
for  neglect  to  carry  a  picture  at  the  time  ordered, 


SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  323 

but  in  reality,  it  is  believed,  because  the  master 
was  jealous  that  he  had  painted  so  admirably  the 
portrait  of  an  elderly  serving-woman  in  the  house. 
He  returned  to  Devonshire,  and  settled  at  Plymouth, 
where  he  soon  painted  about  thirty  portraits  of 
the  magnates  of  the  neighborhood,  at  fifteen  dollars 
apiece. 

He  worked  earnestly,  saying,  "Those  who  are 
determined  to  excel  must  go  to  their  work  whether 
willing  or  unwilling,  morning,  noon,  and  night, 
and  they  will  find  it  to  be  no  play,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  very  hard  labor." 

Young  Reynolds  made  a  portrait  in  1746  of 
Captain  Hamilton,  father  of  the  Marquis  of  Aber- 
corn,  which  was  the  first  of  his  pictures  which 
brought  the  artist  into  notice.  He  also  painted 
Hamilton  in  a  picture  with  Lord  and  Lady  Eliot. 
The  latter  married  Hamilton  after  her  husband's 
death. 

"This  Captain  Hamilton,"  we  find  in  Prior's 
Life  of  Malone,  "was  a  very  uncommon  charac- 
ter ;  very  obstinate,  very  whimsical,  very  pious,  a 
rigid  disciplinarian,  yet  very  kind  to  his  men.  He 
lost  his  life  as  he  was  proceeding  from  his  ship  to 
land  at  Plymouth.  The  wind  and  sea  were  ex- 
tremely high  ;  and  his  officers  remonstrated  against 
the  imprudence  of  venturing  in  a  boat  where  the 
danger  seemed  imminent.  But  he  was  impatient 
to  see  his  wife,  and  would  not  be  persuaded.  In  a 
few  minutes  after  he  left  the  ship,  the  boat  was 
upset  and  turned  keel  upwards. 


324  SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS. 

"  The  captain,  being  a  good  swimmer,  trusted  to 
his  skill,  and  would  not  accept  a  place  on  the  keel, 
in  order  to  make  room  for  others,  and  then  clung 
to  the  edge  of  the  boat.  Unluckily,  he  had  kept 
on  his  great-coat.  At  length,  seeming  exhausted, 
those  on  the  keel  exhorted  him  to  take  a  place 
beside  them,  and  he  attempted  to  throw  off  the 
coat ;  but,  finding  his  strength  fail,  told  the  men 
he  must  yield  to  his  fate,  and  soon  afterwards 
sank,  while  singiny  a  psalm." 

This  year,  young  Reynolds,  now  twenty-three, 
painted  his  own  portrait.  Says  Tom  Taylor,  in  his 
"  Life  and  Times  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,"  begun 
by  Charles  Robert  Leslie,  the  royal  academician, 
and  finished  by  Taylor,  "  It  is  masterly  in  hand- 
ling, and  powerful,  almost  Rembrandtesque,  in 
chiaro-oscuro.  The  hair  flows,  without  powder,  in 
long  ringlets  over  the  shoulders.  The  white  collar 
and  ruffled  front  of  the  shirt  are  thrown  open.  A 
dark  cloak  is  flung  over  the  shoulders." 

This  year,  1746,  Samuel  Reynolds  died,  and  the 
young  painter  took  his  two  unmarried  sisters  to 
Plymouth  to  provide  for  them  in  his  new  home. 
Reynolds  learned  much  at  this  time  from  William 
Gandy,  whose  father  had  been  a  successful  pupil 
of  Van  Dyck.  One  of  this  painter's  maxims,  which 
Joshua  never  forgot,  was  that  "  a  picture  ought  to 
have  a  richness  in  its  texture,  as  if  the  colors  had 
been  composed  of  cream  or  cheese,  and  the  reverse 
of  a  hard  and  husky  or  dry  manner." 

Three  years  later,  an  unlooked-for  pleasure  came 


SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  325 

to  Reynolds.  He  had  always  longed  to  visit  Rome 
for  study,  but  his  father  was  too  poor  to  provide 
the  means,  and  artists,  as  a  rule,  do  not  grow  rich 
early  in  their  career,  if  at  all.  The  famous  Admi- 
ral Keppel,  then  a  commodore  only  twenty-four 
years  old,  appointed  to  a  command  in  the  Medi- 
terranean, put  into  Plymouth  for  repairs  to  his 
ship.  Here,  at  the  house  of  Lord  Edgcumbe,  he 
met  the  young  painter,  and  was  so  pleased  with 
his  courteous  manner  and  frank  kindly  nature  that 
he  offered  him  passage  on  his  vessel.  The  offer 
was  gladly  accepted,  and  they  sailed  for  Lisbon, 
May  11,  1749.  From  here  they  went  to  Cadiz, 
Gibraltar,  Tetuan,  Algiers,  the  Island  of  Minorca, 
where  Reynolds  painted  nearly  all  the  officers  of 
the  garrison,  then  to  Genoa,  Leghorn,  Florence, 
and,  finally,  Rome.  "  Now,"  he  said,  •'  I  am  at  the 
height  of  my  wishes,  in  the  midst  of  the  greatest 
works  of  art  that  the  world  has  produced." 

He  remained  at  Rome  two  years,  his  married 
sisters,  Mrs.  Palmer  and  Mrs.  Johnson,  advancing 
the  money  for  his  expenses.  He  studied  and 
copied  many  of  the  works  of  Raphael,  Michael 
Angelo,  Titian,  Rubens,  Rembrandt,  and  others, 
and  filled  several  journals  with  his  art  notes. 
Two  of  these  books  are  now  carefully  preserved 
in  the  British  Museum,  two  in  the  Sloane  Museum, 
and  several  in  the  Lenox  Gallery  in  New  York. 

At  first,  Reynolds  was  disappointed  in  the  works 
of  Raphael,  but,  said  he,  "  I  did  not  for  a  moment 
conceive  or  suppose  that  the  name  of  Raphael,  and 


326  SIR  JOSHUA   BEYXOLDS. 

those  admirable  paintings  in  particular,  owed  their 
reputation  to  the  ignorance  and  the  prejudice  of 
mankind  ;  on  the  contrary,  my  not  relishing  them 
as  I  was  conscious  I  ought  to  have  done  was  one  of 
the  most  humiliating  things  that  ever  happened  to 
me.  I  found  myself  in  the  midst  of  works  exe- 
cuted upon  principles  with  which  I  was  unac- 
quainted. 

"I  felt  my  ignorance,  and  stood  abashed.  All 
the  indigested  notions  of  painting  which  I  had 
brought  with  me  from  England,  where  the  art  was 
at  the  lowest  ebb,  —  it  could  not,  indeed,  be  lower, 
—  were  to  be  totally  done  away  with  and  eradi- 
cated from  rny  mind.  It  was  necessary,  as  it  is 
expressed  on  a  very  solemn  occasion,  that  I  should 
become  as  a  little  child.  Notwithstanding  my  dis- 
appointment, I  proceeded  to  copy  some  of  those 
excellent  works.  I  viewed  them  again  and  again; 
I  even  affected  to  feel  their  merits,  and  to  admire 
them  more  than  I  really  did.  In  a  short  time  a 
new  taste  and  new  perceptions  began  to  dawn  upon 
me,  and  I  was  convinced  that  I  had  originally 
formed  a  false  opinion  of  the  perfection  of  art,  and 
that  this  great  painter  was  entitled  to  the  high 
rank  which  he  holds  in  the  estimation  of  the 
world.  .  .  . 

"Having  since  that  period  frequently  revolved 
the  subject  in  my  mind,  I  am  now  clearly  of  opin- 
ion that  a  relish  for  the  higher  excellences  of  the 
art  is  an  acquired  taste,  which  no  man  ever  pos- 
sessed without  long  cultivation  and  great  labor  and 


SIR  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS.  327 

attention.  ...  It  is  the  florid  style  which  strikes 
at  once,  and  captivates  the  eye,  for  a  time,  without 
ever  satisfying  the  judgment.  Nor  does  painting 
in  this  respect  differ  from  other  arts.  A  just  and 
poetical  taste  and  the  acquisition  of  a  nice  discrim- 
inative musical  ear  are  equally  the  work  of  time." 

In  making  the  studies  from  Raphael  in  the 
Vatican,  Reynolds  caught  so  severe  a  cold  as  to 
produce  deafness,  from  which  he  never  recovered, 
and  was  obliged  to  use  an  ear-trumpet  all  his  life. 
He  could  not  help  observe  the  superficiality  of  the 
average  tourist.  He  said,  "  Some  Englishmen, 
while  I  was  in  the  Vatican,  came  there,  and  spent 
above  six  hours  in  writing  down  whatever  the 
antiquary  dictated  to  them.  They  scarcely  ever 
looked  at  the  paintings  the  whole  time.  Instead 
of  examining  the  beauties  of  the  works  of  fame, 
and  why  they  were  esteemed,  they  only  inquire  the 
subject  of  the  picture  and  the  name  of  the  painter, 
the  history  of  a  statue  and  where  it  is  found,  and 
write  that  down." 

Later,  Reynolds  journeyed  to  Bologna,  Modena, 
Parma,  and  Venice,  studying  the  methods  of  the 
Venetian  painters.  He  says,  "When  I  observed 
an  extraordinary  effect  of  light  and  shade  in  any 
picture,  I  took  a  leaf  out  of  my  pocketbook,  and 
darkened  every  part  of  it  in  the  same  gradation  of 
light  and  shade  as  the  picture,  leaving  the 'white 
paper  untouched  to  represent  the  light,  and  this 
without  any  attention  to  the  subject,  or  to  the 
drawing  of  the  figures.  A  few  trials  of  this  kind 


328  SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS. 

will  be  sufficient  to  give  their  conduct  in  the  man- 
agement of  their  lights.  After  a  few  experiments, 
I  found  the  paper  blotted  nearly  alike.  Their  gen- 
eral practice  appeared  to  be,  to  allow  not  above  a 
quarter  of  the  picture  for  the  light,  including  in 
this  portion  both  the  principal  and  secondary 
lights ;  another  quarter  to  be  kept  as  dark  as 
possible;  and  the  remaining  half  kept  in  mezzotint 
or  half-shadow.  Rubens  appeal's  to  have  admitted 
rather  more  light  than  a  quarter,  and  Rembrandt 
much  less,  scarcely  an  eighth:  by  this  conduct, 
Rembrandt's  light  is  extremely  brilliant,  but  it 
costs  too  much;  the  rest  of  the  picture  is  sacri- 
ficed to  this  one  object." 

Reynolds  longed  to  be  at  home  again.  So  great 
was  his  love  for  England  that  when,  at  Venice,  he 
heard  at  the  opera  a  ballad  that  had  been  popular 
in  London,  it  brought  tears  to  his  eyes. 

Reynolds  settled  in  London  on  his  return  from 
the  Continent,  after  spending  three  months  in  Dev- 
onshire. He  took  a  suite  of  handsome  apartments 
in  St.  Martin's  Lane,  his  sister  Frances,  six  years 
younger  than  himself,  being  his  housekeeper.  She 
failed  to  make  her  brother  happy,  through  her 
peculiar  temperament.  She  was,  says  Madame 
d?Arblay,  "  a  woman  of  worth  and  understanding, 
but  of  a  singular  character ;  who,  unfortunately 
for  herself,  made,  throughout  life,  the  great  mis- 
take of  nourishing  a  singularity  which  was  her 
bane,  as  if  it  had  been  her  greatest  blessing.  .  .  . 
It  was  that  of  living  in  an  habitual  perplexity  of 


SIB  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  329 

mind  and  irresolution  of  conduct,  which  to  herself 
was  restlessly  tormenting,  and  to  all  around  her 
was  teasingly  wearisome. 

"Whatever  she  suggested  or  planned  one  day 
was  reversed  the  next ;  though  resorted  to  on  the 
third,  as  if  merely  to  be  again  rejected  on  the 
fourth ;  and  so  on  almost  endlessly ;  for  she  rang 
not  the  changes  on  her  opinions  and  designs,  in 
order  to  bring  them  into  harmony  and  practice,  but 
wavering,  to  stir  up  new  combinations  and  difficul- 
ties, till  she  found  herself  in  the  midst  of  such 
chaotic  obstructions  as  could  chime  in  with  no 
given  purpose,  but  must  needs  be  left  to  ring  their 
own  peal,  and  to  begin  again  just  where  they  began 
at  first." 

Frances  copied  her  brother's  pictures,  which 
copies,  Reynolds  said,  "  make  other  people  laugh, 
and  me  cry."  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  said  she  was 
"very  near  to  purity  itself;"  and  of  her  "Essay  on 
Taste,"  "  There  are  in  these  few  pages  or  remarks 
such  a  depth  of  penetration,  such  nicety  of  obser- 
vation, as  Locke  or  Pascal  might  be  proud  of." 

Reynolds  now  painted  the  portraits  of  Sir  James 
Colebrooke,  the  Duchess  of  Hamilton,  the  Countess 
of  Coventry,  and  the  Dukes  of  Devonshire  and 
Graf  ton.  The  two  ladies  were  two  beautiful  Irish 
sisters.  Horace  Walpole  tells  us  "  how  even  the 
noble  mob  in  the  drawing-room  clambered  upon 
chairs  and  tables  to  look  at  them ;  how  their  doors 
were  mobbed  by  crowds  eager  to  see  them  get  into 
their  chairs,  and  places  taken  early  at  the  theatres 


330  SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS. 

when  they  were  expected ;  how  seven  hundred  peo- 
ple sat  up  all  night,  in  and  about  a  Yorkshire  inn, 
to  see  the  Duchess  of  Hamilton  get  into  her  post- 
chaise  in  the  morning ;  while  a  Worcester  shoe- 
maker made  money  by  showing  the  shoe  he  was 
making  for  the  Countess  of  Coventry." 

The  latter,  the  elder  and  lovelier,  died  seven 
years  after  her  marriage,  from  consumption.  The 
Duchess  of  Hamilton,  Reynolds  painted  again  five 
years  later,  and  a  third  time  in  a  red  dress  and  hat, 
on  horseback,  the  Duke  standing  near  her. 

"The  evident  desire  which  Reynolds  had,"  writes 
Northcote,  his  pupil  and  biographer,  "to  render 
his  pictures  perfect  to  the  utmost  of  his  ability, 
and  in  each  succeeding  instance  to  surpass  the 
former,  occasioned  his  frequently  making  them 
inferior  to  what  they  had  been  in  the  course  of 
the  process ;  and  when  it  was  observed  to  him 
that  probably  he  had  never  sent  out  to  the  world 
any  one  of  his  paintings  in  as  perfect  a  state  as  it 
had  been,  he  answered  'that  he  believed  the  re- 
mark was  very  just ;  but  that,  notwithstanding,  he 
certainly  gained  ground  by  it  on  the  whole,  and 
improved  himself  by  the  experiment ; '  adding,  'if 
you  are  not  bold  enough  to  run  the  risk  of  losing, 
you  can  never  hope  to  gain.' 

"With  the  same  wish  of  advancing  himself  in 
the  art,  I  have  heard  him  say  that  whenever  a  new 
sitter  came  to  him  for  a  portrait,  he  always  began 
it  with  a  full  determination  to  make  it  the  best 
picture  he  had  ever  painted;  neither  would  he 


SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  331 

allow  it  to  be  an  excuse  for  his  failure  to  say  'the 
subject  was  a  bad  one  for  a  picture  ; '  there  was 
always  nature,  he  would  observe,  which,  if  well 
treated,  was  fully  sufficient  for  the  purpose." 

The  portrait  of  his  friend  Admiral  Keppel, 
standing  on  a  sandy  beach,  and  back  of  him  a 
tempestuous  sea,  did  much  to  establish  the  repu- 
tation of  Reynolds.  He  painted  eight  other  pic- 
tures of  this  brave  man,  who  entered  the  navy  at 
ten  and  at  eighteen  had  been  round  the  world. 

"Keppel  was  the  first  of  many  heroes  painted 
by  Reynolds,"  writes  Leslie,  "  who  was  never  ex- 
celled, even  by  Velasquez,  in  the  expression  of 
heroism.  So  anxious  was  he  to  do  all  possible 
justice  to  his  gallant  friend,  and  so  difficult  did  he 
find  it  to  please  himself,  that  after  several  sittings 
he  effaced  all  he  had  done,  and  began  the  picture 
again.  .  .  . 

"  From  an  early  period  Reynolds  adopted  what 
he  strongly  recommended  in  his  Discourses,  the 
practice  of  drawing  with  the  hair  pencil  instead  of 
the  port-crayon ;  and  this  constant  use  of  the 
brush  gave  him  a  command  of  the  instrument,  if 
ever  equalled,  certainly  never  exceeded,  for  there 
are  marvels  of  delicacy  and  of  finish  in  his  execu- 
tion, combined  with  a  facility  and  a  spirit  unlike 
anything  upon  the  canvases  of  any  other  painter. 
I  am  far  from  meaning  that  in  the  works  of  other 
great  masters  there  are  not  many  excellences  which 
Reynolds  did  not  possess ;  but  what  I  would  note 
is  that,  though  he  was  all  his  life  studying  the 


332  SIS   JOSHUA    REYNOLDS. 

works  of  other  artists,  he  could  not,  and  it  was 
fortunate  that  he  could  not,  escape  from  his  own 
manner  into  theirs." 

Reynolds  once  said  to  Northcote,  "  There  is  not 
a  man  on  earth  who  has  the  least  notion  of  color- 
ing ;  we  all  of  us  have  it  equally  to  seek  for  and 
find  out,  as  at  present  it  is  totally  lost  to  the  art. 
...  I  had  not  an  opportunity  of  being  early 
initiated  in  the  principles  of  coloring;  no  man, 
indeed,  could  teach  me.  If  I  have  never  been 
settled  with  respect  to  coloring,  let  it  at  the  same 
time  be  remembered  that  my  unsteadiness  in  this 
respect  proceeded  from  an  inordinate  desire  to 
possess  every  kind  of  excellence  that  I  saw  in  the 
works  of  others,  without  considering  that  there  are 
in  coloring,  as  in  style,  excellences  which  are  in- 
compatible with  each  other  ;  however,  this  pursuit, 
or,  indeed,  any  similar  pursuit,  prevents  the  artist 
from  being  tired  of  his  art.  ...  I  tried  every 
effect  of  color;  and,  leaving  out  every  color  in 
its  turn,  showed  every  color  that  I  could  do  with- 
out it.  As  I  alternately  left  out  every  color, 
I  tried  every  new  color,  and  often,  it  is  well 
known,  failed.  .  .  . 

"  I  considered  myself  as  playing  a  great  game ; 
and,  instead  of  beginning  to  save  money,  I  laid  it 
out  faster  than  I  got  it,  in  purchasing  the  best 
examples  of  art  that  could  be  produced,  for  I  even 
borrowed  money  for  this  purpose.  The  possession 
of  pictures  by  Titian,  Vandyck,  Rembrandt,  etc.,  I 
considered  as  the  best  kind  of  wealth."  He  said, 


SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  333 

in  order  to  obtain  one  of  Titian's  best  works  he 
"  would  be  content  to  ruin  himself." 

Reynolds  was  probably  never  surpassed  in  the 
drawing  of  the  face,  but  was  not  always  correct  in 
the  human  form,  because  of  insufficient  knowledge 
of  anatomy. 

During  Reynolds's  second  year  in  London,  he 
had  one  hundred  and  twenty  sitters,  dukes  and 
duchesses,  members  of  Parliament,  and  reigning 
beauties.  That  of  Mrs.  Bonfoy,  daughter  of  the 
first  Lord  Eliot,  is,  says  Leslie,  "  one  of  his  most 
beautiful  female  portraits,  and  in  perfect  preser- 
vation. The  lady  is  painted  as  a  half-length,  in  a 
green  dress,  with  one  hand  on  her  hip,  and  the 
head  turned,  with  that  inimitable  grace  of  which 
Reynolds  was  master  beyond  all  the  painters  who 
ever  painted  women." 

Already  Reynolds  had  become  the  friend  of  the 
great-hearted,  great-minded  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson, 
who  came  and  went  at  all  hours  to  the  artist's 
home,  and  who,  when  about  to  be  arrested  for 
trivial  debts,  was  again  and  again  befriended  by 
the  artist's  purse.  In  1756,  Reynolds  painted  for 
himself  a  half-length  of  Johnson,  with  a  pen  in 
his  hand,  sitting  at  a  table.  This  picture  is  used  in 
Boswell's  Life. 

For  Johnson's  "  Idler "  Reynolds  wrote  three 
papers,  sitting  up  one  whole  night  to  complete 
them,  and  by  so  doing  was  made  ill  for  a  time. 

He  also  painted  a  young  lad,  the  son  of  Dr. 
Mudge,  who  was  very  anxious  to  visit  his  father 


334  SIR  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS. 

on  his  sixteenth  birthday,  but  was  prevented 
through  illness.  "Never  mind,  /  will  send  you 
to  your  father,"  said  Reynolds,  and  he  sent  a 
speaking  likeness,  which  was  of  course  a  gift.  He 
seldom,  however,  made  presents  of  his  pictures, 
for  he  said  they  were  usually  not  valued  unless 
paid  for. 

About  this  time,  Sir  William  Lowther,  a  young 
millionnaire,  died,  leaving  twenty-five  thousand 
dollars  to  each  of  thirteen  companions.  Each 
companion  very  properly  commissioned  Reynolds 
to  paint  for  him  the  portrait  of  so  considerate  and 
generous  a  friend. 

In  1758  and  1759,  the  artist  was  overwhelmed 
with  work.  In  one  year  there  were  one  hundred 
and  fifty  sitters,  among  them  the  Prince  of  Wales, 
afterwards  George  III. ;  Lady  Mary  Coke,  after- 
wards believed  to  have  been  secretly  married  to 
the  Duke  of  York,  brother  of  George  III. ;  and  the 
fair  and  frail  Kitty  Fisher,  very  agreeable  and 
vivacious,  speaking  French  with  great  fluency, 
who  died  five  years  after  her  marriage,  "  a  victim 
of  cosmetics,"  it  is  said.  Sir  Joshua  painted 
seven  beautiful  portraits  of  her.  The  most  in- 
teresting represents  her  holding  a  dove  in  her 
lap,  while  its  mate  is  about  to  descend  to  it 
from  a  sofa  on  which  she  is  reclining.  There  are 
three  of  these,  one  being  in  the  Lenox  collection 
in  New  York. 

Reynolds  also  painted  the  famous  Garrick  this 
year,  and  thirteen  years  later  Garrick  and  his  wife. 


SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  335 

Leslie  writes  :  "  Reynolds  had  to  light  the  eyes 
with  that  meteoric  sensibility,  and  to  kindle  the 
features  with  that  fire  of  life  which  would  deepen 
into  the  passion  of  Lear,  sparkle  in  the  vivacity  of 
Mercutio,  or  tremble  in  the  fatuousness  of  Abel 
Drugger.  He  had  to  paint  the  man  who,  of  all 
men  that  ever  lived,  presents  the  most  perfect 
type  of  the  actor;  quick  in  sympathy,  vivid  in 
observation,  with  a  body  and  mind  so  plastic  that 
they  could  take  every  mould,  and  give  back  the 
very  form  and  pressure  of  every  passion,  fashion, 
action ;  delighted  to  give  delight,  and  spurred  to 
ever  higher  effort  by  the  reflection  of  the  effect 
produced  on  others,  no  matter  whether  his  audi- 
ence were  the  crowd  of  an  applauding  theatre,  a 
table  full  of  noblemen  and  wits,  a  nursery  group 
of  children,  or  a  solitary  black  boy  in  an  area; 
of  inordinate  vanity,  at  once  the  most  courteous, 
genial,  sore,  and  sensitive  of  men ;  full  of  kindli- 
ness, yet  always  quarrelling ;  scheming  for  applause 
even  in  the  society  of  his  most  intimate  friends ;  a 
clever  writer,  a  wit  and  the  friend  of  wits. 

"Mrs.  Garrick,  though  always  the  delight  and 
charm  of  Garvick's  house,  was  now  no  longer  the 
lovely,  light-limbed,  laughing  Eva  Maria  Violette, 
for  love  of  whom  Garrick,  twenty-five  years  before, 
had  dressed  in  woman's  clothes  that  he  might  slip 
a  letter  into  her  chair,  without  compromising  her, 
or  offending  her  watchful  protectress,  Lady  Bur- 
lington, and  who  had  witched  the  world  as  a  dancer, 
while  she  won  friends  among  the  titled  and  the 


336  SIB  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS. 

great  by  her  grace,  good-humor,  and  modest  sweet- 
ness of  disposition.  In  Lord  Normanton's  gallery 
is  a  most  fascinating  sketch  of  her,  which  must 
have  been  painted  in  the  first  years  of  Sir  Joshua's 
acquaintance  with  her.  Slight  as  it  is,  those  who 
have  seen  will  not  easily  forget  it.  In  the  picture 
of  her  sitting  with  her  husband,  painted  this  year, 
she  appears  of  matronly  character,  with  a  hand- 
some, sensitive,  kindly  face ;  the  dress  is  painted 
with  singular  force  and  freedom." 

In  1759,  Reynolds  painted  his  first  Venus,  reclin- 
ing in  a  wooded  landscape,  while  Cupid  looks  in 
through  the  boughs.  Mason,  the  poet,  writes  : 
"  When  he  was  painting  his  first  Venus,  I  was  fre- 
quently near  his  easel ;  and  although  before  I  came 
to  town  his  picture  was  in  some  forwardness,  and 
the  attitude  entirely  decided,  yet  I  happened  to 
visit  him  when  he  was  finishing  the  head  from  a 
beautiful  girl  of  sixteen,  who,  as  he  told  me,  was 
his  man  Ralph's  daughter,  and  whose  flaxen  hair, 
in  fine  natural  curls,  flowed  behind  her  neck  very 
gracefully. 

"But  a  second  casual  visit  presented  me  with  a 
very  different  object;  he  was  then  painting  the 
body,  and  in  his  sitting  chair  a  very  squalid 
beggar-woman  was  placed,  with  a  child,  not  above 
a  year  old,  quite  naked,  upon  her  lap.  As  may  be 
imagined,  I  could  not  help  testifying  my  surprise 
at  seeing  him  paint  the  carnation  of  the  goddess 
of  beauty  from  that  of  a  little  child,  which  seemed 
to  have  been  nourished  rather  with  gin  than  with 


SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  337 

milk,  and  saying  that  '  I  wondered  he  had  not 
taken  some  more  healthy-looking  model ; '  but  he 
answered,  with  his  usual  naivete,  that, '  whatever  I 
might  think,  the  child's  flesh  assisted  him  in  giving 
a  certain  morbidezza  to  his  own  coloring,  which  he 
thought  he  should  hardly  arrive  at  had  he  not  such 
an  object,  when  it  was  extreme  (as  it  certainly 
was),  before  his  eyes." 

Among  the  many  famous  portraits  of  this  year 
and  the  next  was  that  of  the  Countess  Walde- 
grave,  Horace  Walpole's  beautiful  niece  Maria, 
afterwards  Duchess  of  Gloucester.  The  earl  was 
the  most  trusted  friend  of  George  II.,  and,  for  a 
short  time,  prime  minister.  Walpole  mentions  the 
countess  being  mobbed  in  the  park  one  Sunday 
when  in  company  with  Lady  Coventry,  so  that 
several  sergeants  of  the  guards  marched  before 
and  behind  them  to  keep  off  the  admiring  crowd. 
Also  that  of  the  beautiful  Elizabeth  Gunning, 
afterward  Duchess  of  Argyle,  and  the  sister  of 
Admiral  Keppel,  afterwards  Marchioness  of  Tavi- 
stock.  "  This  is  one  of  the  painter's  loveliest  and 
best  preserved  female  portraits.  The  dress  is 
white,  with  a  rose  in  the  bosom,  and  the  expres- 
sion inimitably  maidenly  and  gentle." 

This  year,  Reynolds  removed  to  a  fine  home  in 
Leicester  Square,  where  he  remained  as  long  as 
he  lived,  having  a  suburban  home  at  Richmond 
Villa. »  His  own  painting-room  was  octagonal, 
"about  twenty  feet  long  and  sixteen  in  breadth. 
The  window  which  gave  the  light  to  the  room  was 


338  SIR  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS. 

square,  and  not  much  larger  than  one-half  the  size 
of  a  common  window  in  a  private  house ;  whilst 
the  lower  part  of  this  window  was  nine  feet  four 
inches  from  the  floor.  The  chair  for  his  sitters 
was  raised  eighteen  inches  from  the  floor,  and 
turned  on  casters.  His  palettes  were  those  which 
are  held  by  a  handle,  not  those  held  on  the  thumb. 
The  stocks  of  his  pencils  were  long,  measuring 
about  nineteen  inches.  He  painted  in  that  part 
of  the  room  nearest  to  the  window,  and  never  sat 
down  when  he  worked." 

He  had  now  raised  his  prices  to  twenty-five, 
fifty,  and  one  hundred  guineas  for  the  three  classes 
of  portraits,  —  head,  half-length, 'and  full-length, 
and  his  income  from  his  work  was  thirty  thousand 
dollars  a  year.  He  purchased,  says  Northcote, 
"  a  chariot  on  the  panels  of  which  were  curiously 
painted  the  four  seasons  of  the  year  in  allegorical 
figures.  The  wheels  were  ornamented  with  carved 
foliage  and  gilding ;  the  liveries  also  of  his  ser- 
vants were  laced  with  silver.  But,  having  no  spare 
time  himself  to  make  a  display  of  this  splendor, 
he  insisted  on  it  that  his  sister  Frances  should  go 
out  with  it  as  much  as  possible,  and  let  it  be  seen 
in  the  public  streets  to  make  a  show,  which  she 
was  much  averse  to,  being  a  person  of  great  shy- 
ness of  disposition,  as  it  always  attracted  the  gaze 
of  the  populace,  and  made  her  quite  ashamed  to  be 
seen  in  it.  This  anecdote,  which  I  heard  fro;n  this 
very  sister's  own  mouth,  serves  to  show  that  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds  knew  the  use  of  quackery  in  the 


SIR  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS.  339 

world.  He  knew  that  it  would  be  inquired  whose 
grand  chariot  this  was,  and  that,  when  it  was  told, 
it  would  give  a  strong  indication  of  his  great  suc- 
cess, and,  by  that  means,  tend  to  increase  it." 

The  next  year,  Reynolds  painted,  among  others, 
the  Rev.  Laurence  Sterne,  "at  this  moment  the 
lion  of  the  town,  engaged  fourteen  deep  to  dinner, 
'  his  head  topsy-turvy  with  his  success  and  fame,' 
consequent  on  the  appearance  of  the  first  instal- 
ment of  his  '  Tristram  Shandy.' "  The  picture  is 
now  in  the  gallery  of  the  Marquis  of  Lansdowne, 
by  whom  it  was  purchased  on  the  death  of  Lord 
Holland. 

"Sterne's  wig,"  writes  Leslie,  "was  subject  to  odd 
chances  from  the  humor  that  was  uppermost  in  its 
wearer.  When  by  mistake  he  had  thrown  a  fair 
sheet  of  manuscript  into  the  fire  instead  of  the 
foul  one,  he  tells  us  that  he  snatched  off  his  wig, 
'and  threw  it  perpendicularly,  with  all  imaginable 
violence,  up  to  the  top  of  the  room.'  While  he 
was  sitting  to  Reynolds,  this  same  wig  had  con- 
trived to  get  itself  a  little  on  one  side  ;  and  the 
painter,  with  that  readiness  in  taking  advantage  of 
accident,  to  which  we  owe  so  many  of  the  delight- 
ful novelties  in  his  works,  painted  it  so,  for  he 
must  have  known  that  a  mitre  would  not  sit  long 
bishop-fashion  on  the  head  before  him,  and  it  is 
surprising  what  a  Shandean  air  this  venial  impro- 
priety of  the  wig  gives  to  its  owner.  .  .  . 

"  In  1768,  Sterne  lay  dying  at  the  <  Silk  bag  shop 
in  Old  Bond  Street,'  without  a  friend  to  close  his 


340  SIB  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS. 

eyes.  No  one  but  a  hired  nurse  was  in  the  room, 
when  a  footman,  sent  from  a  dinner  table  where 
was  gathered  a  gay  and  brilliant  party  —  the  Dukes 
of  Roxburgh  and  Graf  ton,  the  Earls  of  March  and 
Ossory,  David  Garrick  and  David  Hume  —  to  in- 
quire how  Dr.  Sterne  did,  was  bid  to  go  upstairs 
by  the  woman  of  the  shop.  He  found  Sterne  just 
a-dying.  In  ten  minutes,  'Now  it  is  come,'  he  said, 
put  up  his  hand  as  if  to  stop  a  blow,  and  died  in  a 
minute. 

"  His  laurels  —  such  as  they  Avere  —  were  still 
green.  The  town  was  ringing  with  the  success  of 
the  '  Sentimental  Journey/  just  published.  .  .  . 
Sterne's  funeral  was  as  friendless  as  his  death-bed. 
Becket,  his  publisher,  was  the  only  one  who  fol- 
lowed the  body  to  its  undistinguished  grave,  in  the 
parish  burial-ground  of  Marylebone,  near  Tyburn 
gallows-stand.  .  .  .  His  grave  was  marked  down 
by  the  body-snatchers,  the  corpse  dug  up,  and  sold 
to  the  professor  of  anatomy  at  Cambridge.  A  stu- 
dent present  at  the  dissection  recognized  under 
the  scalpel  the  face  of  the  brilliant  wit  and  Lon- 
don lion  of  a  few  seasons  before." 

In  1761,  the  year  of  the  marriage  and  coronation 
of  George  III.,  Reynolds  painted  three  of  the  most 
beautiful  of  the  ten  bridesmaids,  —  Lady  Elizabeth 
Keppel;  Lady  Caroline  Russell,  "in  half-length, 
sitting  on  a  garden-seat,  in  a  blue  ermine-em- 
broidered robe  over  a  close  white-satin  vest.  She 
is  lovely,  with  a  frank,  joyous,  innocent  expres- 
sion, and  has  a  pet  Blenheim  spaniel  in  her  lap  — 


SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  341 

a  love-gift,  I  presume,  from  the  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough,  whom  she  married  next  year  ;  "  and  Lady 
Sarah  Lenox,  whom  George  III.  had  loved,  and 
would  have  married  had  not  his  council  prevented. 
She  married,  six  years  later,  Sir  Joshua's  friend, 
Sir  Charles  Bunbury,  was  divorced,  married  Gen- 
eral Napier,  and  became  the  mother  of  two  illus- 
trious sons,  Sir  William  and  Sir  Charles.  Four 
years  later,  Reynolds  painted  another  exquisite 
picture  of  her  "kneeling  at  a  footstool  before  a 
flaming  tripod,  over  which  the  triad  of  the  Graces 
look  down  upon  her  as  she  makes  a  libation  in 
their  honor.  .  .  .  Lady  Sarah  was  still  in  the  full 
glow  of  that  singular  loveliness  which,  it  was  whis- 
pered, had  four  years  ago  won  the  heart  of  the 
king,  and  all  but  placed  an  English  queen  upon 
the  throne.  Though  the  coloring  has  lost  much  of 
its  richness,  the  lakes  having  faded  from  Lady 
Sarah's  robes,  and  left  what  was  once  warm  rose- 
color  a  cold,  faint  purple,  the  picture  takes  a  high 
place  among  the  works  of  its  class  —  the  full- 
length  allegorical." 

Five  years  after  this,  Lord  Tavistock,  a  young 
man  of  rare  promise,  who  had  married  Lady 
Keppel,  was  killed  by  falling  from  his  horse. 
His  beautiful  wife  never  recovered  from  this  be- 
reavement, and  died  in  a  few  months  at  Lisbon,  of 
a  broken  heart. 

All  these  years  were  extremely  busy  ones  for 
the  distinguished  artist.  He  disliked  idle  visitors, 
saying  :  "  These  persons  do  not  consider  that  my 


342  SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS. 

time  is  worth,  to  me,  five  guineas  an  hour."  He 
belonged  to  several  literary  and  social  clubs,  and 
was  a  lifelong  and  devoted  friend  to  such  men  as 
Edmund  Burke,  Johnson,  and  Goldsmith. 

When  he  was  ill,  Johnson  wrote  him :  "  If  the 
amusement  of  my  company  can  exhilarate  the  lan- 
guor of  a  slow  recovery,  I  will  not  delay  a  day  to 
come  to  you,  for  I  know  not  how  I  can  so  effec- 
tually promote  my  own  pleasure  as  by  pleasing 
you,  in  whom,  if  I  should  lose  you,  I  should  lose 
almost  the  only  man  whom  I  call  a  friend." 

Reynolds  had  now  raised  his  prices  to  thirty 
guineas  for  a  head,  seventy  for  a  half-length,  and 
one  hundred  and  fifty  for  a  full-length,  one  half  to 
be  paid  at  the  first  sitting. 

In  1766,  when  he  was  forty-three,  a  frequent 
visitor  to  the  studio  was  Angelica  Kauffman,  the 
pretty  Swiss  artist,  whom  he  usually  enters  in  his 
notebooks  as  "Miss  Angel,"  and  whom  it  is  be- 
lieved he  loved  and  wished  to  marry.  She  was,  at 
this  time,  twenty-five  years  old,  very  attractive, 
and  admired  by  everybody  for  her  genius  and 
loveliness. 

Mrs.  Ellet,  in  her  "  Women  Artists,"  says  :  "  At 
the  age  of  nine,  this  child  of  genius  was  much  no- 
ticed on  account  of  her  wonderful  pastel  pictures. 
When  her  father  left  Morbegno,  in  Lombardy,  in 
1752,  to  reside  in  Como,  she  found  greater  scope 
for  her  ingenious  talent,  and  better  instruction  in 
that  city ;  and,  in  addition  to  her  practice  with  the 
brush  and  pencil,  she  devoted  herself  to  studies  in 


SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  343 

general  literature  and  in  music.  Her  proficiency 
in  the  latter  was  so  rapid,  and  the  talent  evinced  so 
decided,  besides  the  possession  of  a  voice  unusually 
fine,  that  her  friends,  a  few  years  afterward,  urged 
that  her  life  should  be  devoted  to  music.  She  was 
herself  undecided  for  some  time  to  which  vocation 
she  should  consecrate  her  powers." 

In  the  native  city  of  her  father,  Schwarzenberg, 
Angelica  painted  in  fresco  the  figures  of  the  Twelve 
Apostles  after  copper  engravings  from  Piazetta,  an 
unusual  work  for  a  woman.  After  some  years  in 
Milan  and  Florence,  Angelica  went  to  Rome  in 
1763,  where  she  painted  the  portrait  of  Winkel- 
mann,  then  sixty  years  old,  and  other  famous  peo- 
ple, and  was  taken  to  London  by  the  accomplished 
Lady  Wentworth,  wife  of  the  British  resident. 

Here,  says  Mrs.  Ellet,  "  she  found  open  to  her 
a  career  of  brilliant  success,  productive  of  much 
pecuniary  gain.  Her  talents  and  winning  manners 
raised  her  up  patrons  and  friends  among  the  aris- 
tocracy. Persons  attached  to  the  court  engaged 
her  professional  services,  and  the  most  renowned 
painter  in  England,  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  was  of 
the  circle  of  her  friends.  .  .  .  She  was  numbered 
among  the  painters  of  the  Royal  Society,  and  re- 
ceived the  rare  honor,  for  a  woman,  of  an  appoint- 
ment to  a  professorship  in  the  Academy  of  Arts  in 
London,  being,  meanwhile,  universally  acknowl- 
edged to  occupy  a  brilliant  position  in  the  best 
circles  of  fashionable  society." 

Reynolds   painted  her  portrait  twice,  and  she 


344  SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS. 

painted  his  for  his  friend,  Mr.  Parker  of  Saltram. 
She  was  declared  by  some  persons  to  be  "  a  great 
coquette."  Once  she  professed  to  be  enamoured  of 
Nathaniel  Dance ;  to  the  next  visitor  she  would 
disclose  the  great  secret,  "that  she  was  dying  for 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds." 

When  at  the  height  of  her  fame,  either  because 
she  had  refused  a  prominent  lord,  who  sought  to 
be  revenged,  or  through  the  jealousy  of  another 
artist,  a  fearful  deception  was  practised  upon  her. 

"  A  low-born  adventurer,"  says  Mrs.  Ellet,  "  who 
assumed  the  name  of  a  gentleman  of  rank  and 
character  —  that  of  his  master,  Count  Frederic  de 
Horn  —  played  a  conspicuous  part  at  that  time  in 
London  society,  and  was  skilful  enough  to  deceive 
those  with  whom  he  associated.  He  approached 
our  artist,  who  was  then  about  twenty-six,  and  in 
the  bloom  of  her  existence.  He  paid  his  respects 
as  one  who  rendered  the  deepest  homage  to  her 
genius  ;  then  he  passed  into  the  character  of  an 
unassuming  and  sympathizing  friend.  Finally,  he 
appealed  to  her  romantic  generosity,  by  represent- 
ing himself  as  threatened  with  a  terrible  misfor- 
tune, from  which  she  only  could  save  him  by 
accepting  him  as  her  husband.  A  sudden  and 
secret  marriage,  he  averred,  was  necessary. 

"Poor  Angelica,  who  had  shunned  love  on  the 
banks  of  Como  and  under  the  glowing  skies  of 
Italy,  and  since  her  coming  to  London  had  rejected 
many  offers  of  the  most  advantageous  alliance,  that 
she  might  remain  free  to  devote  herself  to  her  art, 


SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  345 

was  caught  in  the  fine-spun  snare,  and  yielded  to 
chivalrous  pity  for  one  she  believed  worthy  of  her 
heart's  affection.  The  marriage  was  celebrated  by 
a  Catholic  priest,  without  the  formality  of  writings 
and  without  witnesses. 

"Angelica  had  received  commissions  to  paint 
several  members  of  the  royal  family  and  eminent 
personages  of  the  court,  and  her  talents  had  pro- 
cured her  the  favorable  notice  of  the  Queen  of 
England.  One  day,  while  she  was  painting  at 
Buckingham  Palace,  her  Majesty  entered  into  con- 
versation with  her,  and  Angelica  communicated  to 
her  royal  friend  the  fact  of  her  marriage.  The 
queen  congratulated  her,  and  sent  an  invitation  to 
the  Count  de  Horn  to  present  himself  at  court. 
The  impostor,  however,  dared  not  appear  so  openly, 
and  he  kept  himself  very  close  at  home,  for  he  well 
knew  that  it  could  not  be  long  before  the  decep- 
tion would  be  discovered. 

"  At  length,  the  suspicions  of  Angelica's  father, 
to  whom  her  marriage  had  been  made  known,  led 
him  to  inquiries,  which  were  aided  by  friends  of 
influence.  About  this  time,  some  say,  the  real 
count  returned,  and  was  surprised  at  being  fre- 
quently congratulated  on  his  marriage.  Then 
came  the  mortifying  discovery  that  the  pretended 
count  was  a  low  impostor.  The  queen  informed 
Angelica,  and  assured  her  of  her  sympathy. 

"  The  fellow  had  been  induced  to  seek  the  poor 
girl's  hand  from  motives  of  cupidity  alone,  desiring 
to  possess  himself  of  the  property  she  had  acquired 


346  SIR  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS. 

by  her  labors.  He  now  wished  to  compel  her  to  a 
hasty  flight  from  London.  Believing  herself  irrev- 
ocably bound  to  him,  Angelica  resolved  to  submit 
to  her  fate ;  but  her  firmness  and  strength  of  na- 
ture enabled  her  to  evade  compliance  with  his 
requisition  that  she  should  leave  England,  till  the 
truth  was  made  known  to  her  —  that  he  who  called 
himself  her  husband  was  already  married  to  an- 
other woman,  still  living.  This  discovery  made  it 
dangerous  for  the  impostor  to  remain  in  London, 
and  he  was  compelled  to  fly  alone,  after  submit- 
ting unwillingly  to  the  necessity  of  restoring  some 
three  hundred  pounds  obtained  from  his  victim,  to 
which  he  had  no  right. 

"The  false  marriage  was,  of  course,  immediately 
declared  null  and  void.  These  unhappy  circum- 
stances in  no  way  diminished  the  interest  and  re- 
spect manifested  for  the  lady  who,  in  plucking  the 
rose  of  life,  had  been  so  severely  wounded  by  its 
thorns ;  on  the  contrary,  she  was  treated  with  more 
attention  than  ever,  and  received  several  unexcep- 
tionable offers  of  marriage.  But  all  were  declined ; 
she  chose  to  live  only  for  her  profession.  .  .  . 

"  After  fifteen  years'  residence  in  England,  when 
the  physician  who  attended  her  suffering  father 
advised  return  to  Italy,  and  the  invalid  expressed 
his  fear  of  dying  and  leaving  her  unprotected, 
Angelica  yielded  to  her  parent's  entreaties,  and  be- 
stowed  her  hand  upon  the  painter  Antonio  Zucchi." 

He  was  then  fifty-three,  and  she  forty.  He  lived 
fourteen  years  after  this,  and  the  marriage  seems 


SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  347 

to  have  been  a  happy  one.  Much  of  the  time  was 
spent  in  Rome,  where  Angelica  became  the  friend 
of  Goethe,  Herder,  and  others.  Goethe  said  of 
her:  "The  good  Angelica  has  a  most  remarkable, 
and,  for  a  woman,  really  unheard-of  talent;  one 
must  see  and  value  what  she  does,  and  not  what 
she  leaves  undone.  There  is  much  to  learn  from 
her,  particularly  as  to  work,  for  Avhat  she  effects  is 
really  marvellous.  .  .  .  The  light  and  pleasing  in 
form  and  color,  in  design  and  execution,  distin- 
guish the  numerous  works  of  our  artist.  No  living 
painter  excels  her  in  dignity,  or  in  the  delicate 
taste  with  which  she  handles  the  pencil." 

Her  "Allegra"  and  "Penserosa,"  "Venus  and 
Adonis,"  "The  Death  of  Heloise,"  "Sappho  In- 
spired by  Love,"  "  Leonardo  da  Vinci  dying  in  the 
arms  of  Francis  I.,"  "The  Return  of  Arminius," 
painted  for  Joseph  II.,  and  the  "Vestal  Virgin," 
are  among  her  best  known  works.  She  died  seven 
years  after  her  husband,  and,  as  at  the  funeral  of 
Raphael,  her  latest  pictures  were  borne  after  her 
bier.  She  was  buried  in  St.  Andrea  della  Fratte, 
and  her  bust  was  preserved  in  the  Pantheon.  Such 
is  the  sad  history  of  the  woman  whom  it  is  be- 
lieved Reynolds  loved,  and  wished  to  marry. 

In  1768  the  Royal,  Academy  was  founded,  chiefly 
by  the  exertions  of  "West,  the  painter,  and  Sir 
William  Chambers.  Reynolds  was  unanimously 
chosen  its  first  president,  and  was  immediately 
knighted  by  the  king.  He  left  a  sitter  to  go  to  St. 
James's  and  receive  the  honor,  and  then  returned 


348  SIR  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS. 

to  his  sitter.  When  the  president  delivered  his 
first  discourse,  probably  on  account  of  his  deafness, 
he  did  not  speak  loud  enough  to  be  heard.  A 
nobleman  said  to  him,  "  Sir  Joshua,  you  read  your 
discourse  in  a  tone  so  low  that  I  scarce  heard  a 
word  you  said." 

"That  was  to  my  advantage,"  said  Sir  Joshua, 
with  a  smile. 

Reynolds  suggested  the  addition  of  a  few  dis- 
tinguished honorary  members  to  the  Academy  : 
Dr.  Johnson,  as  professor  of  Ancient  Literature ; 
Goldsmith,  professor  of  Ancient  History,  and 
others.  Goldsmith  wrote  his  brother,  says  Allan 
Cunningham,  in  his  Life  of  Reynolds :  "  I  took  it 
rather  as  a  compliment  to  the  institution  than  any 
benefit  to  myself.  Honors  to  one  in  my  situation 
are  something  like  ruffles  to  a  man  who  wants  a 
shirt." 

Goldsmith  was  very  fond  of  Reynolds,  and 
dedicated  to  him  his  "  Deserted  Village,"  in  these 
words :  "  I  can  have  no  expectations,  in  an  address 
of  this  kind,  either  to  add  to  your  reputation  or  to 
establish  my  own.  You  can  gain  nothing  from  my 
admiration,  as  I  am  ignorant  of  the  art  in  which 
you  are  said  to  excel,  and  I  may  lose  much  by  the 
severity  of  your  judgment,  as  few  have  a  juster 
taste  in  poetry  than  you.  Setting  interest,  there- 
fore, aside,  to  which  I  never  paid  much  attention, 
I  must  be  indulged  at  present  in  following  my 
affections.  The  only  dedication  I  ever  made  was 
to  my  brother,  because  I  loved  him  better  than 


SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  349 

most  other  men.  He  is  since  dead.  Permit  me  to 
inscribe  this  poem  to  you." 

At  the  first  exhibition  of  the  Academy,  among 
the  pictures  which  attracted  the  most  notice  were 
Sir  Joshua's  Miss  Morris  as  Hope  nursing  Love,  — 
the  lady  was  the  daughter  of  a  governor  of  one  of 
the  West-India  Islands,  and,  going  upon  the  stage 
as  Juliet,  was  so  overpowered  by  timidity  that  she 
fainted  and  died  soon  afterwards,  — the  Duchess  of 
Manchester  and  her  son,  as  Diana  disarming  Cupid; 
and  pretty  Mrs.  Grevve,  the  daughter  of  Fulke  Gre- 
ville,  whom  he  had  painted  at  sixteen  as  Psyche, 
and  at  nineteen  as  St.  Genevieve  reading  in  the 
midst  of  her  flock. 

Tom  Taylor  says:  "The  Mrs.  Crewe  should  class 
as  one  of  his  loveliest  pictures  —  most  touching 
and  pathetic  in  the  expression  given  by  the  atti- 
tude rather  than  the  face ;  for  the  eyes  are  cast 
down  on  the  book,  and  the  features  are  nearly 
hidden  by  the  hand  which  supports  the  head.  The 
landscape  is  beautiful  in  color,  and  powerfully  re- 
lieves the  figure,  clothed  in  a  simple  white  dress, 
the  light  of  which  is  distributed  through  the  pic- 
ture by  the  sheep  feeding  or  resting  about  their 
pretty  shepherdess.  Walpole  notes  the  harmony 
and  simplicity  of  the  picture,  and  calls  it,  not  un- 
justly, '  one  of  his  best.' " 

Each  year,  Reynolds's  discourses  were  eagerly 
listened  to  at  the  Academy.  "A  great  part  of 
every  man's  life,"  he  said,  "  must  be  spent  in  col- 
lecting materials  for  the  exercise  of  genius.  In- 


350  SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS. 

vention  is  little  but  new  combination.  Nothing 
can  come  of  nothing.  Hence  the  necessity  for 
acquaintance  with  the  works  of  your  predecessors. 
But  of  these,  who  are  to  be  models  —  the  guides  ?  " 
The  answer  is,  "  Those  great  masters  who  have 
travelled  with  success  the  same  road.  .  .  .  Try  to 
imagine  how  a  Michael  Angelo  or  a  Raphael  would 
have  conducted  themselves,  and  work  yourself  into 
a  belief  that  your  picture  is  to  be  seen  and  ob- 
served by  them.  Even  enter  into  a  kind  of  com- 
petition with  these  great  masters;  paint  a  subject 
like  theirs ;  a  companion  to  any  work  you  think  a 
model.  Test  your  own  work  with  the  model.  .  .  . 
Let  your  port-crayon  be  never  out  of  your  hands. 
Draw  till  you  draw  as  mechanically  as  you  write. 
But,  on  every  opportunity,  paint  your  studies  in- 
stead of  drawing  them.  Painting  comprises  both 
drawing  and  coloring.  The  Venetians  knew  this, 
and  have  left  few  sketches  on  paper.  .  .  .  Have  no 
dependence  on  your  own  genius ;  if  you  have  great 
talents,  industry  will  improve  them ;  if  you  have 
but  moderate  abilities,  industry  will  supply  their 
deficiency.  Nothing  is  denied  to  well-directed 
labor  —  nothing  is  to  be  obtained  without  it.  ... 
Without  the  love  of  fame  you  can  never  do  any- 
thing excellent ;  but  by  an  excessive  and  undistin- 
guishing  thirst  after  it  you  will  come  to  have 
vulgar  views;  you  will  degrade  your  style,  and 
your  taste  will  be  entirely  corrupted.  ...  I  men- 
tion this  because  our  exhibitions,  while  they  pro- 
duce such  admirable  effects  by  nourishing  einula- 


SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  351 

tion  and  calling  out  genius,  have  also  a  mischievous 
tendency  by  seducing  the  painter  to  an  ambition 
of  pleasing  indiscriminately  the  mixed  multitude  of 
people  who  resort  to  them." 

To  Barry,  the  artist,  who  was  in  Rome,  he  wrote  : 
"  Whoever  is  resolved  to  excel  in  painting,  or 
indeed  in  any  other  art,  must  bring  all  his  mind  to 
bear  upon  that  one  object,  from  the  moment  he 
rises  till  he  goes  to  bed.  The  effect  of  every  ob- 
ject that  meets  the  painter's  eye  may  give  a  lesson, 
provided  his  mind  is  calm,  unembarrassed  with 
other  objects,  and  open  to  instruction.  This  gen- 
eral attention,  with  other  studies  connected  with 
the  art,  which  must  employ  the  artist  in  his  closet, 
will  be  found  sufficient  to  fill  up  life,  if  it  were 
much  longer  than  it  is.  ...  Whoever  has  great 
views,  I  would  recommend  to  him,  whilst  at  Home, 
rather  to  live  on  bread  and  water  than  lose  those 
advantages  which  he  can  never  hope  to  enjoy  a 
second  time,  and  which  he  will  find  only  in  the 
Vatican.  .  .  .  The  Capella  Sistina  is  the  produc- 
tion of  the  greatest  genius  that  was  ever  employed 
in  the  arts.  ...  If  you  neglect  visiting  the  Vatican 
often,  and  particularly  the  Capella  Sistina,  you 
will  neglect  receiving  that  peculiar  advantage 
which  Rome  can  give  above  all  other  cities  in  the 
world.  In  other  places  you  will  find  casts  from 
the  antique,  and  capital  pictures  of  the  great  mas- 
ters, but  it  is  there  only  that  you  can  form  an  idea 
of  the  dignity  of  the  art,  as  it  is  there  only  that 
you  can  see  the  works  of  Michael  Angelo  and 


352  SIR  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS. 

Raphael.  If  you  should  not  relish  them  at  first, 
which  may  probably  be  the  case,  as  they  have 
none  of  those  qualities  which  are  captivating  at 
first  sight,  never  cease  looking  till  you  feel  some- 
thing like  inspiration  come  over  you,  till  you  think 
every  other  painter  insipid  in  comparison,  and  to 
be  admired  only  for  petty  excellences." 

In  1770,  Sir  Joshua  painted  a  picture  called 
"  The  Babes  in  the  Woods,"  which  is  now  in  the 
collection  of  Viscount  Palmerston.  Reynolds  loved 
to  find  picturesque  beggar  children  on  the  street, 
and  would  send  them  to  his  studio  to  be  painted. 
Northcote  says  he  would  often  hear  the  voice  of  a 
little  waif,  worn  with  sitting,  say  plaintively,  "  tSir, 
—  sir,  —  I'm  tired  ! " 

"  It  happened  once,"  says  Leslie,  "  as  it  probably 
often  did,  that  one  of  these  little  sitters  fell  asleep, 
and  in  so  beautiful  an  attitude  that  Sir  Joshua 
instantly  put  away  the  picture  he  was  at  work  on, 
and  took  up  a  fresh  canvas.  After  sketching  the 
little  model  as  it  lay,  a  change  took  place  in  its 
position  ;  he  moved  his  canvas  to  make  the  change 
greater,  and,  to  suit  the  purpose  he  had  conceived, 
sketched  the  child  again.  The  result  was  the  pic- 
ture of  the  (  Babes  in  the  Wood.' " 

This  year,  Sir  Joshua  brought  the  thirteen-year- 
old  daughter,  Theophila,  of  his  widowed  sister, 
Mrs.  Palmer,  to  live  with  him  in  London,  and 
three  years  later  her  elder  sister,  Mary,  who  after- 
ward became  the  Marchioness  of  Thomond.  He 
painted  Theophila,  called  Offy,  as  "A  Girl  Read- 


SIR  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS.  353 

ing,"  at  which  the  young  miss  was  offended,  saying, 
"  I  think  they  might  have  put  '  A  Young  Lady.' " 

Sir  Joshua  offered  to  take  to  his  home  the  sons 
of  his  other  sister,  Mrs.  Johnson  —  he  had  not  for- 
gotten how  these  two  sisters  had  loaned  him  money 
when  he  was  poor  —  but  Mrs.  Johnson  declined 
his  offer,  fearing  the  temptations  of  London,  and 
being  greatly  opposed  to  her  brother's  habit  of 
painting  on  Sundays.  One  son  went  into  the 
church  and  died  young;  another  went  to  India, 
and  Reynolds  took  great  interest  in  his  welfare. 
Later,  two  of  Mrs.  Johnson's  daughters  lived  with 
Sir  Joshua. 

In  1773,  he  painted  and  exhibited  "  The  Straw- 
berry Girl,"  which  represents  Offy  Palmer,  creep- 
ing timidly  along,  and  looking  anxiously  around 
with  her  great  black  eyes.  '  Sir  Joshua  always 
maintained  that  this  was  one  of  the  "  half-dozen 
original  things  "  which  he  said  no  man  ever  ex- 
ceeded in  his  life's  work.  Later  the  picture  was 
purchased  by  the  Marquis  of  Hertford  for  ten 
thousand  five  hundred  dollars. 

F.  S.  Pulling,  of  Exeter  College,  Oxford,  says,  in 
his  Life  of  Sir  Joshua  :  "  What  a-  love  Reynolds 
had  for  children,  childless  though  he  was  himself ! 
What  a  marvellous  knowledge  of  their  ways,  and/ 
even  of  their  thoughts  !  With  the  peer's  son  or 
the  beggar's  child  it  was  the  same.  The  most  fas- 
tidious critic  finds  it  impossible  to  discover  faults 
in  these  child  portraits ;  the  whole  soul  of  the 
painter  has  gone  into  them,  and  he  is  as  much  at 


354  SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS. 

home  with  the  gypsy  child  as  with  little  Lord  Mor- 
peth.  As  Mr.  Stephens  well  observes,  '  Reynolds, 
of  all  artists,  painted  children  best  .  .  .  knew  most 
of  childhood,  depicted  its  appearances  in  the 
truest  and  happiest  spirit  of  comedy,  entered  into 
its  changeful  soul  with  the  tenderest,  heartiest 
sympathy,  played  with  the  playful,  sighed  with 
the  sorrowful,  and  mastered  all  the  craft  of  in- 
fancy .  .  .  His  'Child  Angels'  was  not  painted 
till  1786.  It  consists  of  simply  five  different  rep- 
resentations of  the  same  face,  that  of  Frances 
Gordon.  The  perfect  loveliness  of  this  picture  is 
beyond  dispute.  .  .  .  These  are  human  faces,  it  is 
true,  but  can  you  imagine  any  purer,  more  inno- 
cent, more  gentle  faces  ?,..!,  for  one,  am  per- 
fectly content  to  accept  these  faces  as  those  of  the 
most  lovely  beings  God  ever  created." 

A  picture  of  a  nymph  with  a  young  Bacchus, 
really  the  portrait  of  the  beautiful  young  actress,- 
Mrs.  Hartley,  "  whose  lovely  face  and  lithe,  tall, 
delicate  figure  had  rapidly  won  for  her  the  leading 
place  at  Covent  Garden,"  is  now  in  the  possession 
of  Mr.  Bentley,  who  refused  an  offer  of  ten  thou- 
sand dollars  fof  it. 

Sir  Joshua  was  now  elected  mayor  of  Plympton, 
xhis  native  town,  an  honor  which  he  greatly  prized ; 
and  received  the  degree  of  D.  C.  L.  from  Oxford 
University.  Oliver  Goldsmith  had  died,  and  on 
the  day  of  his  death  Sir  Joshua  did  not  touch  a 
pencil,  "  a  circumstance  the  most  extraordinary  for 
him,"  says  Northcote,  "  who  passed  no  day  with- 


*     , 


SIB   JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  355 

out  a  line."  He  acted  as  executor  for  his  dead 
friend,  and  found,  to  his  amazement,  that  his  debts 
were  ten  thousand  dollars. 

Reynolds  was  as  ever  the  centre  of  a  charming 
circle.  Miss  Burney,  the  author  of  "Evelina," 
liked  his  countenance  and  manners ;  the  former 
she  pronounced  "expressive,  soft,  and  sensible; 
the  latter,  gentle,  unassuming,  and  engaging." 
Hannah  More,  too,  was  greatly  pleased  with  the 
distinguished  painter. 

"  Foremost  among  the  beauties  of  this  brilliant 
time,"  says  Leslie,  "  was  Sir  Joshua's  pet  in  child- 
hood, now  the  irresistible  young  queen  of  ton, 
Georgiana,  Duchess  of  Devonshire.  She  effaced 
all  her  rivals,  Walpole  tells  us,  without  being  a 
beauty.  '  Her  youth,  figure,  glowing  good-nature, 
sense,  lively  modesty,  and  modest  familiarity  make 
her  a  phenomenon.'  The  young  duchess  was  now 
sitting  to  him  in  the  full  flush  of  her  triumph  as 
arbitress  of  fashion,  the  most  brilliant  of  the  gay 
throng  who  danced  and  played  the  nights  away  at 
the  Ladies'  Club,  masqueraded  at  the  Pantheon, 
and  promenaded  at  Eanelagh.  Marie  Antoinette 
herself  had  scarcely  a  gayer,  more  devoted,  and 
more  obsequious  court.  It  was  this  beautiful 
young  duchess  who  set  the  fashion  of  the  feather 
headdresses,  now  a  mark  for  all  the  witlings  of 
the  time.  Sir  Joshua  has  painted  her  in  her 
new-fashioned  plumes,  in  the  full-length  now  at 
Spencer  House.  .  .  . 

"  Another  beautiful  sitter  of  this  year  was  Eliza, 


356  SIR   JOSHUA   REYNOLDS. 

the  youthful  wife  of  Eichard  Brinsley  Sheridan. 
The  youug  couple  were  now  emerging  from  the 
first  difficulties  of  their  married  life.  Her  exqui- 
site and  delicate  loveliness,  all  the  more  fascinating 
for  the  tender  sadness  which  seemed,  as  a  contem- 
porary describes  it,  to  project  over  her  the  shadow 
of  early  death ;  her  sweet  voice,  and  the  pathetic 
expression  of  her  singing ;  the  timid  and  touching 
grace  of  her  air  and  deportment,  had  won  universal 
admiration  for  Eliza  Ann  Linley.  From  the  days 
when,  a  girl  of  nine,  she  stood  with  her  little 
basket  at  the  pump-room  door,  timidly  offering  the 
tickets  for  her  father's  benefit  concerts,  to  those 
when  in  her  teens  she  was  the  belle  of  the  Bath 
assemblies,  none  could  resist  her  beseeching  grace. 
Lovers  and  wooers  flocked  about  her ;  Richard 
Walter  Long,  the  Wiltshire  miser,  laid  his  thou- 
sands at  her  feet.  .  .  . 

"Nor  had  she  resisted  only  the  temptation  of 
money  ;  coronets,  it  was  whispered,  had  been  laid 
at  her  feet  as  well  as  purses.  When  she  appeared 
at  the  Oxford  oratorios,  grave  dons  and  young  gen- 
tlemen commoners  were  alike  subdued.  In  Lon- 
don, where  she  sang  at  Covent  Garden  in  the  Lent 
of  1773,  the  king  himself  was  said  to  have  been 
fascinated  as  much  by  her  eyes  and  voice  as  by 
the  music  of  his  favorite  Handel.  From  all  this 
homage  Miss  Linley  had  withdrawn  to  share  love 
in  a  cottage  with  Sheridan  at  East  Burnham,  after 
a  runaway  match  in  March.  1772,  and  after  her 
husband  had  fought  two  duels  in  her  cause  with 


SIR   JOSHUA    REYNOLDS.  357 

a  Captain  Matthews.  When  she  began  to  sit  to 
Sir  Joshua,  Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan  was  only 
known  as  a  witty,  vivacious,  easy-tempered,  and 
agreeable  young  man  of  three  and  twenty,  with 
nothing  but  his  wits  to  depend  on ;  but,  before  the 
picture  was  finished,  he  was  famous  as  the  author 
of  '  The  Rivals.' " 

Sir  Joshua  painted  Mrs.  Sheridan  as  St.  Cecilia. 
"  She  had  a  way  of  gathering  little  children  about 
her,  and  singing  their  childish  songs,  with  '  such  a 
playfulness  of  manner,  and  such  a  sweetness  of  look 
and  voice,'  says  one,  in  describing  her  so  engaged, 
'as  was  quite  enchanting.'  .  .  .  Mrs.  Sheridan  was 
gentleness  personified,  and  sang  without  pressing ; 
but  her  husband,  proud  of  her  as  he  was,  would 
never  allow  her  to  sing  in  public  after  their  mar- 
riage, and  was  even  chary  of  permitting  her  to  de- 
light their  friends  with  her  sweet  voice  in  private. 
She  was  the  lovely  model  for  the  Virgin  in  Rey- 
nolds's  'Nativity,'  for  which  the  young  Duke  of 
Rutland  paid  him  six  thousand  dollars,  an  unexam- 
pled price  for  an  English  picture  at  that  time.  It 
was  burnt  at  Belvoir  Castle.  She  died  a  few  years 
later,  living  long  enough  to  witness  her  husband's 
great  success,  and  not  long  enough  to  see  him  over- 
whelmed with  debts,  partly  the  result  of  drink." 

In  1780,  Sir  Joshua  painted  the  ladies  Maria, 
Laura,  and  Horatia  Waldgrave,  grand-nieces  of 
Horace  Walpole.  "He  never  had  more  beautiful 
sitters,"  says  Leslie ;  "  and  in  none  of  his  pic- 
tures has  he  done  more  justice  to  beauty.  Their 


358  SIB  JOSHUA   BEYXOLDS. 

bright  faces  are  made  to  tell  with  wonderful  force, 
by  the  white  dresses  and  powdered  tetes  worn  by 
all  three.  They  are  sitting  round  a  work-table. 
Lady  Laura,  in  the  centre,  winds  silk  on  a  card 
from  a  skein  held  by  Lady  Horatia ;  while  Lady 
Maria,  on  the  right,  bends  over  her  tambouring 
frame.  The  action  admits  of  a  natural  arrange- 
ment of  the  heads,  in  full-face,  three-quarters,  and 
profile ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  an  easier, 
prettier  way  of  grouping  three  graceful,  high-bred 
young  ladies."  At  this  time,  all  three  of  these 
young  ladies  were  in  sorrow.  The  young  Duke 
of  Ancaster,  to  whom  Horatia  was  betrothed,  had 
just  died  suddenly,  and  two  prominent  lords  to 
whom  the  other  sisters  were  engaged  had  broken 
their  promises.  Lady  Maria  married,  four  years 
later,  the  Earl  of  Euston  ;  Laura,  her  cousin,  Lord 
Chewton ;  and  Horatia,  Lord  Hugh  Seymour. 

Sir  Joshua  painted  two  years  later  the  beautiful 
but  unhappy  Mrs.  Musters,  whose  son  John  mar- 
ried Mary  Chaworth,  Byron's  first  love.  "The 
fine  full-length  of  her  as  Hebe,  with  the  eagle,  still 
hangs  at  Colwich  Hall.  Another  full-length,  with 
a  spaniel  at  her  feet,  painted  in  1777,  the  year  of 
her  marriage,  is  at  Petworth.  It  is  interesting  to 
compare  the  two,  and  note  the  wear  and  tear  of  five 
years  in  the  reign  of  a  queen  of  fashion."  The 
eagle  was  a  pet  of  Sir  Joshua,  kept  in  a  yard  out- 
side the  studio. 

In  1783,  when  Mrs.  Siddons  was  the  leading 
actress  of  the  time,  she  sat  to  Reynolds.  Taking 


SIR   JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  359 

her  hand,  he  led  her  up  to  his  platform  with  the 
words,  "  Ascend  your  undisputed  throne :  bestow 
on  me  some  idea  of  the  Tragic  Muse."  "On 
which,"  she  said,  "I  walked  up  the  steps,  and 
instantly  seated  myself  in  the  attitude  in  which 
the  Tragic  Muse  now  appears."  He  inscribed  his 
name  on  the  border  of  her  drapery,  saying,  "I 
could  not  lose  the  honor  this  opportunity  afforded 
me  of  going  down  to  posterity  on  the  hem  of  your 
garment."  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence  called  this  the 
finest  portrait  in  the  world  of  a  woman,  and  Mrs. 
Jameson  says,  "  It  was  painted  for  the  universe  and 
posterity."  This  picture  was  purchased,  in  1822, 
by  the  first  Marquis  of  Westminster,  for  nearly 
nine  thousand  dollars.  Reynolds  also  painted 
Miss  Kemble,  her  sister,  "  a  very  sweet  and  gentle 
woman." 

This  year,  1784,  a  friendship  of  thirty  years  was 
severed  by  the  death  of  Dr.  Johnson.  On  his 
death-bed,  he  made  three  requests  of  Sir  Joshua: 
never  to  use  his  pencil  on  Sundays ;  to  read  the 
Bible  whenever  possible,  and  always  on  Sundays ; 
and  to  forgive  him  a  debt  of  thirty  pounds,  which 
he  had  borrowed  of  him,  as  he  wished  to  leave  the 
money  to  a  poor  family.  Reynolds  was  present  at 
the  funeral,  when  his  friend  was  laid  beside  Gar- 
rick,  in  the  south  transept  of  Westminster  Abbey. 

Reynolds  said  of  his  friend :  "  His  pride  had  no 
meanness  in  it ;  there  was  nothing  little  or  mean 
about  him. 

"  Truth,  whether  in  great  or  little  matters,  he 


360  SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS. 

held  sacred.  From  the  violation  of  truth,  he  said, 
in  great  things  your  character  or  your  interest  was 
affected,  in  lesser  things  your  pleasure  is  equally 
destroyed.  I  remember,  on  his  relating  some  inci- 
dent, I  added  something  to  his  relation,  which  I 
supposed  might  likewise  have  happened :  '  It  would 
have  been  a  better  story/  says  he,  '  if  it  had  been 
so;  but  it  was  not.'  Our  friend,  Dr.  Goldsmith, 
was  not  so  scrupulous ;  but  he  said  he  only  in- 
dulged himself  in  white  lies,  light  as  feathers, 
which  he  threw  up  in  the  air,  and,  on  whomever 
they  fell,  nobody  was  hurt.  'I  wish,'  says  Dr. 
Johnson,  '  you  would  take  the  trouble  of  moulting 
your  feathers.' 

"As  in  his  writings  not  a  line  can  be  found 
which  a  saint  would  wish  to  blot,  so  in  his  life  he 
would  never  suffer  the  least  immorality  or  inde- 
cency of  conversation,  or  anything  contrary  to 
virtue  or  piety,  to  proceed  without  a  severe  check, 
which  no  elevation  of  rank  exempted  them  from. 

'•'The  Christian  religion  was  with  him  such  a 
certain  and  established  truth  that  he  considered  it 
as  a  kind  of  profanation  to  hold  any  argument 
about  its  truth." 

At  sixty -three  years  of  age,  Reynolds  was  as  busy 
as  ever.  Miss  Palmer  wrote  to  her  cousin  in  Cal- 
cutta :  "  My  uncle  seems  more  bewitched  than  ever 
with  his  palette  and  pencils.  He  is  painting  from 
morning  till  night,  and  the  truth  is  that  every  pic- 
ture he  does  seems  better  than  the  former.  He  is 
just  going  to  begin  a  picture  for  the  Empress  of 


SIR   JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  361 

Eussia,  who  has  sent  to  desire  he  will  paint  her  an 
historical  one.  The  subject  is  left  to  his  own 
choice,  and  at  present  he  is  undetermined  what 
to  choose." 

He  chose  "The  Infant  Hercules  strangling  the 
Serpents."  Rogers  says :  "  Reynolds,  who  was 
always  thinking  of  his  art,  was  one  day  walking 
with  Dr.  Lawrence,  near  Beaconsfield,  when  they 
met  a  fine  rosy  little  peasant  boy  —  a  son  of 
Burke's  bailiff.  Reynolds  patted  him  on  the  head, 
and,  after  looking  earnestly  in  his  face,  said  :  '  I 
must  give  more  color  to  my  Infant  Hercules.' "  He 
took  such  great  pains  with  this  Avork  that  he  used 
to  say  of  the  picture :  "  There  are  ten  under  it, 
some  better,  some  worse."  The  Empress  sent  him 
as  pay  for  this  a  gold  box,  with  her  cipher  in  dia- 
monds, and  seven  thousand  five  hundred  dollars. 

In  his  "Gleaners,"  painted  in  1788,  the  centre 
figure,  with  a  sheaf  of  corn  011  her  head,  was  the 
portrait  of  a  beautiful  girl,  Miss  Potts,  who  after- 
wards became  the  mother  of  Sir  Edwin  Landseer. 

In  1789,  he  lost  the  sight  of  his  left  eye,  through 
overwork,  but  he  still  preserved  the  sweet  serenity 
of  his  nature,  and  was  not  depressed.  He  amused 
himself  with  his  canary  bird,  which  was  so  tame 
that  it  would  sit  upon  his  hand ;  but  one  morning 
it  flew  out  of  the  window,  and  never  returned. 

On  December  10,  1790,  Reynolds  gave  his  fif- 
teenth and  last  Discourse  to  the  Academy.  In 
closing,  he  said  to  the  crowded  audience :  "  I  re- 
flect, not  without  vanity,  that  these  Discourses 


362  SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS. 

bear  testimony  of  my  admiration  of  that  truly 
divine  man;  and  I  should  desire  that  the  last 
words  I  should  pronounce  in  this  Academy  and 
from  this  place  might  be  the  name  of  MICHAEL 
AXGELO." 

As  Reynolds  descended  from  the  chair,  Edmund 
Burke  stepped  forward,  and,  taking  his  hand,  ad- 
dressed him  in  the  words  of  Milton,  — 

"  The  angel  ended,  and  in  Adam's  ear 
So  charming  left  his  voice,  that  he  awhile 
Thought  him  still  speaking,  still  stood  fixed  to  hear." 

This  year,  he  allowed  Sheridan  to  buy  the  pic- 
ture of  his  wife,  "  St.  Cecilia,"  at  half-price.  Rey- 
nolds said  it  was  "  the  best  picture  he  ever 
painted,"  and  added,  in  the  letter  to  Sheridan  : 
"  However,  there  is  now  an  end  of  the  pursuit ; 
the  race  is  over,  whether  it  is  won  or  lost." 

The  next  year,  in  May,  1791,  Sir  Joshua  sat  for 
his  picture  for  the  last  time  to  the  Swedish  artist, 
Beda,  at  the  request  of  the  Royal  Academy  of 
Sweden.  He  had  sent  his  picture  to  Florence,  on 
being  elected  an  honorary  member  of  that  famous 
Academy.  In  October  of  this  year  he  became 
almost  totally  blind. 

Burke  wrote  to  his  son  Richard  in  January, 
1792  :  "  Our  poor  friend,  Sir  Joshua,  declines 
daily.  For  some  time  past  he  has  kept  his  bed.  .  .  . 
At  times  he  has  pain ;  but  for  the  most  part  is 
tolerably  easy.  Nothing  can  equal  the  tranquillity 
with  which  he  views  his  end.  He  congratulates 


SIR   JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  363 

himself  on  it  as  a  happy  conclusion  of  a  happy 
life.  He  spoke  of  you  in  a  style  that  was  affect- 
ing. I  don't  believe  there  are  any  persons 
he  values  more  sincerely  than  you  and  your 
mother." 

Reynolds  died  tranquilly  between  eight  and  nine 
on  Thursday  evening,  February  23,  1792.  He  was 
buried  in  St.  Paul's,  on  Saturday,  March  3,  ninety- 
one  carriages  following  the  body  to  the  grave. 
There  were  ten  pall-bearers,  the  Duke  of  Dorset, 
Duke  of  Leeds,  Duke  of  Portland,  Marquis 
Townshend,  Marquis  of  Abercorn,  Earl  of  Car- 
lisle, Earl  of  Inchiquin,  Earl  of  Upper  Ossory, 
Lord  Viscount  Palmerston,  and  Lord  Eliot. 

By  will  he  left-  to  his  niece  Offy,  who  had  mar- 
ried, in  1781,  a  wealthy  Cornish  gentleman,  Mr. 
Gwatkin,  fifty  thousand  dollars ;  to  his  sister 
Frances  the  use,  for  life,  of  twelve  thousand  five 
hundred  dollars ;  to  Burke,  ten  thousand  dollars, 
and  cancelled  a  bond  for  the  same  amount  of 
money  borrowed ;  a  thousand  dollars  to  each  of 
his  executors ;  five  thousand  dollars  to  a  servant 
who  had  lived  with  him  more  than  thirty  years ; 
all  the  remainder  of  his  property,  about  five  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars,  to  his  niece,  Miss  Palmer, 
Such  an  amount  of  money  earned  by  an  artist, 
making  his  own  way  in  life  from  poverty,  was 
indeed  wonderful.  The  number  of  his  pictures  is 
estimated  at  three  thousand. 

Burke  wrote  of  him,  the  pages  blurred  with  his 
tears :  "  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  was,  on  very  many 


364  SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS. 

accounts,  one  of  the  most  memorable  men  of  his 
time.  He  was  the  first  Englishman  who  added  the 
praise  of  the  elegant  arts  to  the  other  glories  of 
his  country.  In  taste,  in  grace,  in  facility,  in 
happy  invention,  and  in  the  richness  and  harmony 
of  coloring,  he  was  equal  to  the  great  masters  of 
the  renowned  ages.  In  portrait  he  went  beyond 
them  ;  for  he  communicated  to  that  description  of 
the  art,  in  which  English  artists  are  the  most  en- 
gaged, a  variety,  a  fancy,  and  a  dignity  derived 
from  the  higher  branches,  which  even  those  who 
professed  them  in  a  superior  manner  did  not 
always  preserve  when  they  delineated  individual 
nature.  His  portraits  remind  the  spectator  of  the 
invention  of  history  and  the  amenity  of  land- 
scape. He  possessed  the  theory  as  perfectly  as  the 
practice  of  his  art.  To  be  such  a  painter,  he  was 
a  profound  and  penetrating  philosopher. 

"  In  full  affluence  of  foreign  and  domestic  fame, 
admired  by  the  expert  in  art  and  by  the  learned 
in  science,  courted  by  the  great,  caressed  by  sov- 
ereign powers,  and  celebrated  by  distinguished 
poets,  his  native  humility,  modesty,  and  candor 
never  forsook  him,  even  on  surprise  or  provoca- 
tion; nor  was  the  least  degree  of  arrogance  or 
assumption  visible  to  the  most  scrutinizing  eye  in 
any  part  of  his  conduct  or  discourse. 

"  His  talents  of  every  kind,  powerful  from 
nature,  and  not  meanly  cultivated  by  letters,  his 
social  virtues  in  all  the  relations  and  all  the  habi- 
tudes of  life,  rendered  him  the  centre  of  a  very 


SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS.  365 

great  and  unparalleled  variety  of  agreeable  societies, 
which  will  be  dissipated  by  his  death.  He  had  too 
much  merit  not  to  excite  some  jealousy,  too  much 
innocence  to  provoke  any  enmity.  The  loss  of  no 
man  of  his  time  can  be  felt  with  more  sincere, 
general,  and  unmixed  sorrow." 

Mrs.  Jameson  says :  "  The  pictures  of  Reynolds 
are,  to  the  eye,  what  delicious  melodies  are  to  the 
ear,  —  Italian  music  set  to  English  words  ;  for  the 
color,  with  its  luxurious,  melting  harmony,  is 
Venetian,  and  the  faces  and  the  associations  are 
English.  .  .  .  More  and  more  we  learn  to  sympa- 
thize with  that  which  is  his  highest  characteristic, 
and  which  alone  has  enabled  him  to  compete  with 
the  old  masters  of  Italy ;  the  amount  of  mind,  of 
sensibility,  he  threw  into  every  production  of  his 
pencil,  the  genial,  living  soul  he  infused  into  forms, 
giving  to  them  a  deathless  vitality." 

One  secret  of  Reynolds's  popularity,  outside  his 
genius,  was  the  fact  that  he  never  spoke  ill  of  the 
work  of  other  painters.  Northcote  says  he  once 
asked  Sir  Joshua  what  he  thought  of  two  pictures 
by  Madame  Le  Brun,  who  at  that  time  was  the 
most  popular  artist  in  France  in  portraiture. 

" (  They  are  very  fine,'  he  answered. 

«  '  How  fine  ?  '  I  said. 

" '  As  fine  as  those  of  any  painter.' 

" '  Do  you  mean  living  or  dead  ? ' 

"  '  Either  living  or  dead,'  he  answered  briskly. 

"  <  As  fine  as  Van  Dyke  ?  ' 

"  He  answered  tartly,  '  Yes,  and  finer.' 


366  SIR  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS. 

"  I  said  no  more,  perceiving  he  was  displeased  at 
my  questioning  him." 

Leslie  says  of  him :  "  He  felt  deeply  and  almost 
impatiently  the  gulf  between  the  technical  merits 
of  his  pictures  and  those  of  the  great  Venetians 
or  Rembrandt,  whom  at  different  epochs  he  wor- 
shipped with  equal  reverence.  I  have  no  doubt 
his  inferiority  to  these  men  in  power,  in  mastery 
of  materials,  and  in  certainty  of  method  was 
just  as  apparent  to  Sir  Joshua  as  it  is  to  any  un- 
biassed judge  who  now  compares  his  pictures  with 
those  of  Titian,  Rembrandt,  or  Velasquez.  .  .  . 

"Estimating  Reynolds  at  his  best,  he  stands 
high  among  the  great  portrait  painters  of  the 
world,  and  has  achieved  as  distinct  a  place  for  him- 
self in  their  ranks  as  Titian  or  Tintoret,  Velasquez 
or  Rembrandt." 


SIR  EDWIN  LANDSEER. 


SIR   EDWIN   LANDSEER. 


SIR  EDWIN  LANDSEER,  bom  in  1802,  in 
London,  on  or  about  March  7,  was  the  fifth 
child  in  a  family  of  seven  children.  The  father, 
John  Landseer,  a  most  skilful  engraver,  was  the 
author  of  some  books  on  the  art  of  engraving  and 
archaeology.  He  once  gave  a  course  of  lectures 
before  the  Royal  Institution.  The  mother,  whose 
maiden  name  was  Miss  Potts,  was  a  gifted  and 
beautiful  woman,  whose  portrait  was  painted  by 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 

The  boy  Edwin  began  to  draw  very  early  in  life. 
Miss  Meteyard  quotes  these  words  from  John 
Landseer:  "These  two  fields  were  Edwin's  first 
studio.  Many  a  time  have  I  lifted  him  over 
this  very  stile.  I  then  lived  in  Foley  Street,  and 
nearly  all  the  way  between  Marylebone  and  Hamp- 
stead  was  open  fields.  It  was  a  favorite  walk 
with  my  boys ;  and  one  day  when  I  had  accom- 
panied them,  Edwin  stopped  by  this  stile  to  ad- 
mire some  sheep  and  cows  which  were  quietly 
grazing.  At  his  request  I  lifted  him  over,  and, 
finding  a  scrap  of  paper  and  a  pencil  in  my  pocket, 
I  made  him  sketch  a  cow.  He  was  very  young 


368  SIR   EDWIN  LANDSEER. 

indeed  then  —  not  more  than  six  or  seven  years 
old. 

"  After  this  we  came  on  several  occasions,  and 
as  he  grew  older  this  was  one  of  his  favorite  spots 
for  sketching.  He  would  start  off  alone,  or  with 
John  (Thomas  ?)  or  Charles,  and  remain  till  I 
fetched  him  in  the  afternoon.  I  would  then  criti- 
cise his  work,  and  make  him  correct  defects  before 
we  left  the  spot.  Sometimes  he  would  sketch  in 
one  field,  sometimes  in  the  other,  but  generally 
in  the  one  beyond  the  old  oak  we  see  there,  as  it 
was  more  pleasant  and  sunny." 

AVhile  still  very  young,  the  lad  learned  the 
process  of  etching  from  his  father  and  elder 
brother  Thomas,  the  latter  one  of  the  most  emi- 
nent of  engravers.  At  seven,  he  drew  and  etched 
the  heads  of  a  lion  and  a  tiger,  "  in  which,"  says 
Frederick  G.  Stephens,  "the  differing  characters 
of  the  beasts  are  given  with  marvellous  craft,  that 
would  honor  a  much  older  artist  than  the  producer. 
The  drawing  of  the  tiger's  whiskers  —  always 
difficult  things  to  manage  — is  admirable  in  its 
rendering  of  foreshortened  curves." 

At  thirteen  he  drew  a  magnificent  St.  Bernard 
dog.  Edwin  saw  him  in  the  streets  of  London,  in 
charge  of  a  man  servant.  He  followed  the  dog  to 
the  residence  of  his  owner,  and  obtained  permission 
to  make  a  sketch  of  him.  The  animal  was  six  feet 
four  inches  long,  and,  at  the  middle  of  his  back, 
stood  two  feet  seven  inches  in  height.  These 
creatures  are  capable  of  carrying  one  hundred- 


SIR  EDWIN  LANDSEEE.  369 

weight  of  provisions  from  a  neighboring  town  to 
the  monks  at  the  Monastery  of  St.  Bernard, 
eighteen  miles. 

Stephens  says:  "It  is  really  one  of  the  finest 
drawings  of  a  dog  that  have  ever  been  produced. 
We  do  not  think  that  even  the  artist  at  any  time 
surpassed  its  noble  workmanship.  The  head, 
though  expansive  and  domical  in  its  shape,  is 
small  in  proportion  to  that  of  a  Newfoundland 
dog;  the  brow  is  broad  and  round;  the  eyes,  ac- 
cording to  the  standard  commonly  assumed  for 
large  dogs,  are  far  from  being  large,  and  are  very 
steadfast  in  their  look,  without  fierceness ;  the  ears 
are  pendulous,  placed  near  to  the  head,  and  fleshy 
in  substance."  A  live  dog,  admitted  into  the  room 
with  this  picture,  became  greatly  excited. 

When  Edwin  was  thirteen,  in  1815,  he  exhibited 
some  pictures  at  the  Koyal  Academy ;  a  mule,  and 
a  dog  with  a  puppy.  The  following  year  he  be- 
came a  student  at  the  Royal  Academy.  He  was  a 
bright,  manly  boy,  with  light,  curly  hair,  gentle 
and  graceful  in  manner,  and  diligent  in  his  work. 
Fuseli,  the  keeper  of  the  Academy,  was  much 
pleased  with  him,  and,  looking  around  the  room 
upon  the  students,  would  say,  "  Where  is  my  little 
dog  boy  ?  "  This  was  in  allusion  to  the  picture  of 
Edwin's  favorite  dog,  Brutus,  lying  at  full  length 
of  his  chain,  near  a  red  earthenware  dish.  The 
picture,  though  very  small,  was  sold  in  1861  for 
seventy  guineas. 

In  1818,  "  Fighting  Dogs  Getting  Wind  "   was 


370  SIR  EDWIN  LANDSEER. 

exhibited  at  Spring  Gardens,  and  caused  a  great 
sensation.  The  Examiner  said,  in  a  review  of  the 
Avorks  of  the  Society  of  Painters  in  Oil  and  Water- 
Colors,  "  Landseer's  may  be  called  the  great  style 
of  animal  painting,  as  far  as  it  relates  to  the  exe- 
cution and  color,  and  the  natural,  as  far  as  it  con- 
cerns their  portraiture.  Did  we  see  only  the  dog's 
collar,  we  should  know  that  it  was  produced  by  no 
common  hand,  so  good  is  it,  and  palpably  true. 
But  the  gasping  and  cavernous  and  redly  stained 
mouths,  the  flaming  eyes,  the  prostrate  dog,  and 
his  antagonist  standing  exultingly  over  him ;  the 
inveterate  rage  that  superior  strength  inflames 
but  cannot  subdue,  with  the  broad  and  bright 
relief  of  the  objects,  give  a  wonder-producing 
vitality  to  the  canvas." 

Landseer  also  exhibited  this  year  the  "White 
Horse  in  a  Stable."  It  disappeared  from  the 
studio,  and  twenty-four  years  later,  in  1842,  it 
was  discovered  in  a  hayloft,  where  it  had  been 
hidden  by  a  dishonest  servant.  It  was  sent  to 
Honorable  H.  Pierrepont,  for  whom  it  was  painted, 
with  a  letter  from  Landseer,  saying  that  he  had 
not  retouched  the  picture,  "thinking  it  better 
when  my  early  style  was  unmingled  with  that  of 
my  old  age." 

In  1819,  "The  Cat  Disturbed"  was  exhibited, 
afterwards  engraved  with  the  title  of  "The  In- 
truder." It  represents  a  cat  chased  to  the  upper 
part  of  a  stable  by  a  dog,  into  whose  place  she 
had  ventured.  Dr.  Waagen  said,  "This  picture 


SIB  EDWIN  LANDSEEE.  371 

exhibits  a  power  of  coloring  and  a  solidity  of 
execution  recalling  such,  masters  as  Snyders  and 
Fyt." 

About  this  time  a  lion  in  the  Exeter  Change 
Menagerie  died,  and  the  young  artist  succeeded 
iu  getting  the  body  and  dissecting  it,  acting  upon 
Haydon's  advice,  of  years  before,  to  "dissect  ani- 
mals, the  only  mode  of  acquiring  a  knowledge  of 
their  construction." 

The  result  was  the  painting  of  two  large  pic- 
tures, six  feet  by  eight,  and  six  feet  by  seven  feet 
six  inches  respectively :  "  A  Lion  Disturbed  at  his 
Repast,"  and  "  A  Lion  Enjoying  his  Repast,"  fol- 
lowed by  a  third,  "  A  Prowling  Lion." 

In  1821,  the  chief  pictures  exhibited  were  "  The 
Rat-Catchers,"  where  four  dogs  are  catching  rats 
in  an  old  barn ;  and  "  Pointers,  To-ho,"  a  hunting- 
scene,  which  sold  in  1872  for  over  ten  thousand 
dollars.  The  following  year,  Landseer  received 
from  the  directors  of  the  British  Institution  seven 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars  as  a  prize  for  "The 
Larder  Invaded."  Eighteen  other  pictures  came 
from  Landseer's  studio  this  year. 

The  most  famous  of  Sir  Edwin's  early  works 
was  "The  Cat's-Paw,"  sold  for  five  hundred  dol- 
lars, and  now  owned  by  the  Earl  of  Essex.  Its 
present  value  is  over  fifteen  thousand  dollars. 

"The  scene,"  says  Stephens,  "is  a  laundry  or 
ironing-room,  probably  in  some  great  house,  to 
which  a  monkey  of  most  crafty  and  resolute  dis- 
position has  access.  The  place  is  too  neat  and 


372  SIB   EDWIN  LANDSEER. 

well  maintained  to  be  part  of  a  poor  man's  house. 
The  ironing-woman  has  left  her  work,  the  stove  is 
in  full  combustion,  and  the  hand  of  some  one  who 
appreciated  the  good  things  of  life  has  deposited 
on  its  level  top,  together  with  a  flatiron,  half  a 
dozen  ripe,  sound  chestnuts.  To  the  aromatic, 
appetizing  odor  of  the  fruit  was  probably  due 
the  entrance  of  the  monkey,  a  muscular,  healthy 
beast,  who  came  dragging  his  chain  and  making 
his  bell  rattle.  He  smelt  the  fruit  and  coveted 
them ;  tried  to  steal  them  off  the  cooking-place 
with  his  own  long,  lean  digits,  and  burnt  his  fingers. 

"  He  looked  about  for  a  more  effective  means, 
and,  heedless  of  the  motherhood  of  a  fine  cat,  who 
with  her  kittens  was  ensconced  in  a  clothes-basket, 
where  she  blandly  enjoyed  the  coverings  and  the 
heat,  pounced  upon  puss,  entangled  as  she  was  in 
the  wrappings  of  her  ease.  Puss  resisted  at  first 
with  offended  dignity  and  wrath  at  being  thus 
treated  before  the  faces  of  her  offspring.  She 
resisted  as  a  cat  only  can,  with  lithe  and  strenu- 
ous limbs ;  the  muscular,  light,  and  vigorous  frame 
of  the  creature  quivered  with  the  stress  of  her 
energy;  she  twisted,  doubled  her  body,  buckled 
herself,  so  to  say,  in  convulsions  of  passion  and 
fear,  but  still,  surely,  without  a  notion  of  the 
object  of  her  captor. 

"  Yet  he  had  by  far  the  best  of  the  struggle,  for 
her  tiger-like  claws  were  enveloped  in  the  cover- 
ing which  erst  served  her  so  comfortably ;  and, 
kicking,  struggling,  squalling,  and  squealing  as 


SIR   EDWIN  LAND  SEER.  373 

strength  departed  from  her,  she  flounced  about 
the  room,  upset  the  coal-scuttle  on  the  floor,  and 
hurled  her  mistress's  favorite  flower-pot  in  hid- 
eous confusion  on  the  '  ironing-blanket.'  It  was  to 
no  purpose,  for  the  quadruped,  with  muffled  claws, 
was  no  match  for  her  four-handed  foe.  He  dragged 
her  towards  the  stove,  and  dreadful  notions  of  a 
fate  in  its  fiery  bowels  must  have  arisen  in  her 
heart  as  nearer  and  still  more  near  the  master  of 
the  situation  brought  his  victim. 

"  Stern,  resolute,  with  no  more  mercy  than  the 
cat  had  when  some  unhappy  mouse  felt  her  claws 
—  claws  now  to  be  deftly  yet  painfully  employed, 
Pug  grasped  her  in  three  of  his  powerful  hands, 
and,  as  reckless  of  struggles  as  of  yells,  squeals, 
and  squalls,  with  the  fourth  stretched  out  her  soft, 
sensitive,  velvety  forepaw  —  the  very  mouse-slayer 
itself  —  to  the  burning  stove  and  its  spoils.  What 
cared  he  for  the  bared  backs  or  the  spiteful  mewl- 
ings  of  her  miserable  offspring,  little  cats  as  they 
were  ?  He  made  their  mother  a  true  'cat's-paw.' " 

Soon  after  the  exhibition  of  this  picture,  Sir 
Walter  Scott  came  to  London  and  took  the  young 
painter  to  Abbotsford.  The  novelist  greatly  ad- 
mired Landseer's  work,  saying,  "  His  dogs  are  the 
most  magnificent  things  I  ever  saw,  leaping  and 
bounding  and  grinning  all  over  the  canvas."  After 
this,  Landseer  visited  Scotland  nearly  every  year, 
charmed  by  its  scenery  and  enjoying  the  hospi- 
tality of  the  nobles. 

In  his  thirty-second  year,  it  seemed  necessary 


374  SIR   EDWIN  LANDSEER. 

that  the  painter  should  have  a  home  removed  from 
the  soot  and  noisy  traffic  of  London.  A  small  house 
and  garden,  with  a  barn  suitable  for  a  studio,  were 
purchased  at  No.  1  St.  John's  Wood,  a  suburban 
region,  which  derives  its  name  from  having  been 
owned  by  the  priors  of  the  Hospital  of  the  Knights 
of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem.  A  premium  of  a  hun- 
dred pounds  being  demanded  for  the  house,  Land- 
seer  was  about  to  break  off  negotiations,  when  a 
friend  said :  "  If  that  is  the  only  obstacle,  I  will 
remove  it.  Go  to  the  lawyers,  and  tell  them  to 
make  out  the  lease,  and  that  as  soon  as  it  is  ready 
for  signatures,  you  will  pay  the  sum  required ;  and 
I  will  lend  you  the  money,  which  you  can  repay 
when  it  suits  you,  without  interest." 

The  painter  returned  the  money  loaned,  in  instal- 
ments of  twenty  pounds  each.  Here  he  lived  for 
nearly  fifty  years,  his  sister,  Mrs.  Mackenzie,  being 
his  housekeeper.  Here  he  received  more  famous 
people  than  any  other  English  painter  save 
Joshua  Reynolds.  Here,  as  he  grew  wealthy,  he 
brought  his  dogs  and  other  pets  ;  here  the  father, 
John  Landseer,  to  whom  the  son  was  ever  devot- 
edly attached,  died. 

A  writer  in  Cornhill  says :  "  There  were  few 
studios  formerly  more  charming  to  visit  than 
Landseer's.  Besides  the  genial  artist  and  his 
beautiful  pictures,  the  habitues  of  his  workshop 
(as  he  called  it)  belonged  to  the  elite  of  London 
society,  especially  the  men  of  wit  and  distin- 
guished talents  —  none  more  often  there  than 


SIB  EDWIN  LANDSEER.  375 

D'Orsay,  with  his  good-humored  face,  his  ready 
wit  and  delicate  flattery.  '  Landseer,'  he  would 
call  out  at  his  entrance,  'keep  de  dogs  off  me'  (the 
painted  ones).  '  I  want  to  come  in,  and  some  of 
dem  will  bite  me  —  and  dat  fellow  in  de  corner  is 
growling  furiously.'  " 

In  1826,  when  Landseer  was  twenty-four  years 
old,  "  Chevy  Chase  "  was  painted,  now  at  Woburn 
Abbey,  the  property  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford.  It  is 
an  illustration  of  the  old  ballad  :  — 

"  To  drive  the  deer  with  hound  and  home 

Erie  Percy  took  his  way, 
The  chiefest  harts  in  Chevy  Chase 
To  kill  and  bear  away." 

This  year,  he  was  made  an  associate  of  the  Royal 
Academy,  an  honor  seldom  given  to  so  young  a 
man.  He  was  made  a  full  member  at  thirty.  His 
first  important  picture  exhibited  after  this,  in 
1827,  was  «  The  Chief's  Return  from  Deer-stalk- 
ing." "  It  is,"  says  Stephens.  "  one  of  the  best  of 
his  compositions,  the  subject  giving  scope  to  all 
his  powers  in  dealing  with  dogs,  deer,  and  horses. 
Across  the  backs  of  a  white  and  a  black  pony  two 
magnificent  antlered  deer  are  bound.  A  young 
chief  and  his  old  companion,  a  mountaineer,  — with 
traces  of  the  wear  and  tear  of  a  hard  life  on  his 
cheeks  and  in  his  gaunt  eyes,  —  step  by  the  head  of 
one  of  the  horses.  They  go  slowly  and  needfully 
down  the  hill.  Two  dogs  pace  with  them ;  one  of 
these  turns  to  a  deer's  skull  which  lies  in  the 
herbage." 


376  SIR  EDWIN  LANDSEER. 

"  The  Monkey  who  had  seen  the  World "  ap- 
peared at  the  same  time  as  "  The  Chief's  Return," 
and  was  engraved  by  Gibbon  as  "  The  Travelled 
Monkey."  The  monkey,  who  has  returned  from 
his  travels  and  meets  his  friends,  is  dressed  in  a 
cocked  hat  and  laced  coat,  with  a  wide  cravat, 
breeches,  buckled  shoes,  and  a  pendent  eyeglass. 
The  latter,  especially,  astonishes  his  friends. 
Thomas  Baring  gave  fifteen  hundred  guineas  for 
this  painting,  and  bequeathed  it  to  Lord  North- 
brook. 

Another  picture  of  this  time,  engraved  by  John 
Pye,  was  thus  described  in  the  Catalogue  :  "  Wil- 
liam Smith,  being  possessed  of  combativeness,  and 
animated  by  a  love  of  glory,  enlisted  in  the  101st 
Regiment  of  Foot.  At  the  Battle  of  Waterloo,  on 
the  18th  of  July  following,  a  cannon-ball  carried 
off  one  of  his  legs ;  thus  commenced  and  termi- 
nated William's  military  career.  As  he  lay 
wounded  on  the  field  of  battle,  the  dog  here 
represented,  blind  with  one  eye,  and  having  also 
a  leg  shattered  apparently  by  a  musket-ball,  came 
and  sat  beside  him,  as  'twere  for  sympathy. 

"  The  dog  became  William's  prisoner,  and,  when 
a  grateful  country  rewarded  William's  services  by 
a  pension  and  a  wooden  leg,  he  stumped  about 
accompanied  by  the  dog,  his  friend  and  com- 
panion. On  the  15th  of  December,  1834,  Wil- 
liam died.  His  name  never  having  been  recorded 
in  an  extraordinary  Gazette,  this  public  monu- 
ment, representing  the  dog  at  a  moment  when  he 


SIR   EDWIN  LANDSEER.  377 

•was  ill,  and  reclining  against  the  mattress  on 
which  his  master  died,  is  erected  to  his  memory 
by  Edwin  Landseer  and  John  Pye." 

In  this  year,  1827,  there  was  also  exhibited  the 
well-known  "  Scene  at  Abbotsford,"  with  the  cele- 
brated Maida,  Sir  Walter  Scott's  favorite  dog,  in 
the  foreground.  Six  weeks  after  the  picture  was 
painted,  the  dog  died.  "  High  Life  "  and  "  Low 
Life,"  exhibited  in  1831,  noteworthy  on  account  of 
their  size,  being  eighteen  inches  by  thirteen  and  a 
half,  were  bequeathed  by  Kobert  Vernon  to  the 
nation,  and  are  now  in  the  National  Gallery. 
"  High  Life "  represents  a  gentle  and  slender 
stag-hound  in  a  handsome  home ;  "  Low  Life,"  a 
brawny  bulldog,  in  a  rude  stone  doorway. 

Hamerton  says :  "  Everything  that  can  be  said 
about  Landseer's  knowledge  of  animals,  and  espe- 
cially of  dogs,  has  already  been  said.  There  was 
never  very  much  to  say,  for  there  was  no  variety 
of  opinion  and  nothing  to  discuss.  Critics  may 
write  volumes  of  controversy  about  Turner  and 
Delacroix,  but  Landseer's  merits  were  so  obvious 
to  every  one  that  he  stood  in  no  need  of  critical 
explanations.  The  best  commentators  on  Land- 
seer,  the  best  defenders  of  his  genius,  are  the  dogs 
themselves ;  and  so  long  as  there  exist  terriers, 
deer-hounds,  bloodhounds,  his  fame  will  need  little 
assistance  from  writers  upon  art." 

In  1832,  "Spaniels  of  King  Charles's  Breed" 
was  exhibited;  now  in  the  National  Gallery,  as 
a  gift  from  Mr.  Vernon.  Both  these  spaniels,  pets 


378  SIR  EDWIN  LANDSEEB. 

of  Mr.  Vernon,  came  to  a  violent  end.  The  white 
Blenheim  spaniel  fell  from  a  table  and  was  killed ; 
the  true  "  King  Charles  "  fell  through  the  railings 
of  a  staircase,  and  was  picked  up  dead  at  the 
bottom.  The  picture  was  painted  in  two  days, 
illustrating  Landseer's  wonderful  rapidity  of  exe- 
cution. Yet  this  power,  as  Stephens  well  says, 
"followed  more  than  twenty  years'  hard  study." 

Stephens  records  a.n  amazing  instance  of  Land- 
seer's  power.  "A  large  party  was  assembled  one 
evening  at  the  house  of  a  gentleman  in  the  upper 
ranks  of  London  society ;  crowds  of  ladies  and 
gentlemen  of  distinction  were  present,  including 
Landseer,  who  was,  as  usual,  a  lion  ;  a  large  group 
gathered  about  the  sofa  where  he  was  lounging. 
The  subject  turned  on  dexterity  and  facility  in 
feats  of  skill  with  the  hand.  No  doubt,  the  talk 
was  ingeniously  led  in  this  direction  by  some 
who  knew  that  Sir  Edwin  could  do  wonders  of 
dexterous  draughtsmanship,  and  were  not  unwill- 
ing to  see  him  draw,  but  they  did  not  expect  what 
followed. 

"A  lady,  lolling  back  on  a  settee,  and  rather 
tired  of  the  subject,  as  ladies  are  apt  to  become 
when  conversation  does  not  appeal  to  their  feel- 
ings or  their  interests,  exclaimed,  after  many 
instances  of  manual  dexterity  had  been  cited : 
'  Well,  there's  one  thing  nobody  has  ever  done, 
and  that  is  to  draw  two  things  at  once.'  She  had 
signalized  herself  by  quashing  a  subject  of  conver- 
sation, and  was  about  to  return  to  her  most  becoin- 


SIR  EDWIN  LANDSEER.  379 

ing  attitude,  when  Landseer  said :  '  Oh,  I  can  do 
that ;  lend  me  two  pencils,  and  I  will  show  you.' 

"  The  pencils  were  got,  a  piece  of  paper  was  laid 
on  the  table,  and  Sir  Edwin,  a  pencil  in  each  hand, 
drew  simultaneously,  and  without  hesitation,  with 
the  one  hand  the  profile  of  a  stag's  head,  and  all 
its  antlers  complete,  and  with  the  other  hand  the 
perfect  profile  of  a  horse's  head.  Both  drawings 
were  full  of  energy  and  spirit,  and,  although,  as 
the  occasion  compelled,  not  finished,  they  were, 
together  and  individually,  quite  as  good  as  the 
master  was  accustomed  to  produce  with  his  right 
hand  alone  ;  the  drawing  by  the  left  hand  was 
not  inferior  to  that  by  the  right." 

In  1834,  "  Suspense,"  a  bloodhound  watching  at 
a  closed  door  for  his  wounded  master,  "A  High- 
land Shepherd  Dog  rescuing  Sheep  from  a  Snow- 
drift," and  "  A  Scene  of  the  Old  Time  at  Bolton 
Abbey "  were  exhibited.  For  the  last,  Landseer 
was  paid  two  thousand  dollars.  It  is  now  owned 
by  the  Duke  of  Devonshire,  and  is  valued  at  more 
than  fifteen  thousand  dollars.  Queen  Victoria  and 
Prince  Albert  made  etchings  from  this  and  from 
several  others  of  Landseer's  works. 

In  1835,  "A  Sleeping  Bloodhound"  (Countess) 
was  exhibited.  It  was  bequeathed  by  Mr.  Jacob 
Bell  to  the  National  Gallery.  "  The  hound  was, 
one  dark  night  (at  Wandsworth),  anxiously  watch- 
ing her  master's  return  from  London.  She  heard 
the  wheels  of  his  gig  and  his  voice,  but,  in  leaping 
from  the  balcony  where  she  watched,  she  missed 


380  SIB  EDWIN  LAND  SEER. 

her  footing,  and  fell  all  but  dead  at  her  master's 
feet.  Mr.  Bell  (the  owner  of  the  dog)  placed  the 
hound  in  his  gig  and  returned  to  London,  called 
Sir  Edwin  Landseer  from  his  bed,  and  had  a 
sketch  made  then  and  there  of  the  dying  animal." 

In  1837  came  "  The  Highland  Shepherd's  Chief 
Mourner,"  representing  the  interior  of  a  plain 
Highland  home,  the  coffin  of  the  shepherd  in  the 
centre,  covered  by  his  maud  for  a  pall,  his  only 
mourner  the  dog  who  rests  his  head  upon  the 
coffin.  A  well-worn  Bible  is  on  a  stool  in  front, 
with  a  pair  of  spectacles. 

Ruskin  calls  this  picture  "  one  of  the  most  per- 
fect poems  or  pictures  (I  use  the  words  as  synony- 
mous) which  modern  times  have  seen.  Here  the 
exquisite  execution  of  the  crisp  and  glossy  hair  of 
the  dog,  the  bright,  sharp  touching  of  the  green 
bough  beside  it,  the  clear  painting  of  the  wood  of 
the  coffin  and  the  folds  of  the  blanket,  are  lan- 
guage, —  language  clear  and  expressive  in  the 
highest  degree.  But  the  close  pressure  of  the 
dog's  breast  against  the  wood ;  the  convulsive 
clinging  of  the  paws,  which  has  dragged  the 
blanket  off  the  trestle ;  the  total  povverlessness  of 
the  head,  laid  close  and  motionless  upon  its  folds ; 
the  fixed  and  tearful  fall  of  the  eye  in  its  utter 
hopelessness ;  the  rigidity  of  repose,  which  marks 
that  there  has  been  no  motion  nor  change  in  the 
trance  of  agony  since  the  last  blow  was  struck  up- 
on the  coffin-lid  ;  the  spectacles  marking  the  place 
where  the  Bible  was  last  closed,  indicating  how 


SIR   ZTHVIN   LANDSEEE.  381 

lonely  has  been  the  life,  how  unwatched  the  de- 
parture, of  him  who  is  now  laid  solitary  in  his 
sleep,  —  these  are  all  thoughts ;  thoughts  by  which 
the  picture  is  separated  at  once  from  hundreds  of 
equal  merit  as  far  as  the  mere  painting  goes, — 
by  which  it  ranks  as  a  work  of  high  merit,  and 
stamps  its  author,  not  as  the  neat  imitator  of  the 
texture  of  a  skin  or  the  fold  of  a  drapery,  but  as  a 
Man  of  Mind." 

"  The  Portrait  of  the  Marquis  of  Stafford  and 
the  Lady  Evelyn  Gower,"  in  1838,  is  considered 
Landseer's  best  portrait-picture.  "  A  Distinguished 
Member  of  the  Humane  Society,"  exhibited  in 
1838,  is  the  picture  of  a  large  Newfoundland  dog 
named  Paul  Pry.  "  He  lies  in  the  broad  sunlight, 
and  the  shadow  of  his  enormous  head  is  cast  side- 
ways on  his  flank  as  white  as  snow.  He  looks  sea- 
ward with  a  watchful  eye,  and  his  quickness  of 
attention  is  hinted  at  by  the  gentle  lifting  of  his 
ears.  The  painting  of  the  hide,  here  rigid  and 
there  soft ;  here  shining  with  reflected  light,  there 
like  down;  the  masses  of  the  hair,  as  the  dog's 
habitual  motions  caused  them  to  grow ;  the  fore- 
shortening of  his  paws  as  they  hang  over  the  edge 
of  the  quay,  and  the  fine  sense  of  chiaro-oscuro 
displayed  in  the  whole,  induce  us  to  rank  it,"  says 
Stephens,  "  with  the  painter's  masterpieces." 

Landseer  was  now  thirty-six  years  old,  famous 
and  honored,  a  welcome  guest  at  the  palaces  of 
royalty.  In  1835  he  had  painted  Dash,  the  favorite 
spaniel  of  the  Duchess  of  Kent,  the  pet  of  whom 


382  SIB  EDWIN  LANDSEER. 

Leslie  speaks  in  his  autobiography :  "  The  Queen 
[Victoria],  I  am  told,  had  studied  her  part  very 
diligently,  and  she  went  through  it  extremely  well. 
I  don't  know  why,  but  the  first  sight  of  her  in  her 
robes  brought  tears  into  my  eyes,  and  it  had  this 
effect  upon  many  people ;  she  looked  almost  like 
a  child.  She  is  very  fond  of  dogs,  and  has  one 
very  favorite  little  spaniel,  who  is  always  on  the 
lookout  for  her  return  when  she  has  been  from 
home.  She  had  of  course  been  separated  from  him 
on  that  day  longer  than  usual,  and  when  the  state 
coach  drove  up  to  the  steps  of  the  palace,  she  heard 
him  barking  with  joy  in  the  hall,  and  exclaimed, 
'There's  Dash!'  and  was  in  a  hurry  to  lay  aside 
the  sceptre  and  ball  she  carried  in  her  hands,  and 
take  off  the  crown  and  robes,  to  go  and  wash  little 
Dash." 

In  1839  Landseer  painted  a  picture  of  the  Queen, 
which  she  gave  to  Prince  Albert;  the  next  year, 
the  Queen  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington  reviewing 
a  body  of  troops  ;  in  1842,  "  The  Queen  and  Chil- 
dren ; "  the  Princess  Royal  with  her  pony  and  dog ; 
the  Queen  and  the  Princess  Royal ;  "  Windsor 
Castle  in  the  Present  Time;"  Islay,  the  Queen's 
pet  terrier ;  Sharp,  her  favorite ;  Princess  Alice 
in  a  cradle,  with  the  dog  Dandie  Dinmont ;  Alice 
with  the  greyhound  Eos,  belonging  to  Prince  Al- 
bert, and  later  "  Her  Majesty  the  Queen  in  the 
Highlands,"  "Prince  Albert  at  Balmoral,"  which 
was  engraved  for  the  Queen's  book,  "  Leaves  from 
a  Diary  in  the  Highlands ;  "  Princess  Beatrice  on 


SIR   EDWIN  LANDSEEE.  383 

horseback,  the  Queen  at  Osborne,  and  the  Queen 
on  a  white  horse. 

Landseer  was  always  a  favorite  with  the  royal 
family.  In  the  last  painful  years  of  his  life,  when 
he  suffered  from  overtaxed  nerves,  they  were  his 
devoted  friends.  He  writes  to  his  sister  from 
Balmoral,  June,  1867 :  "  The  Queen  kindly  com- 
mands me  to  get  well  here.  She  has  to-day  been 
twice  to  my  room  to  show  additions  recently  added 
to  her  already  rich  collection  of  photographs. 
Why,  I  know  not,  but  since  I  have  been  in  the 
Highlands  I  have  for  the  first  time  felt  wretchedly 
weak,  without  appetite.  The  easterly  winds,  and 
now  again  the  unceasing  cold  rain,  may  possibly 
account  for  my  condition,  but  I  can't  get  out. 
Drawing  tires  me ;  however,  I  have  done  a  little 
better  to-day.  The  doctor  residing  in  the  castle 
has  taken  me  in  hand,  and  gives  me  leave  to  dine 
to-day  with  the  Queen  and  the  rest  of  the  royal 
family.  .  .  .  Flogging  would  be  mild  compared  to 
my  sufferings.  No  sleep,  fearful  cramp  at  night, 
accompanied  by  a  feeling  of  faintness  and  distress- 
ful feebleness." 

When  Landseer  was  in  good  health,  he  was  the 
most  genial  of  companions.  He  was  the  intimate 
friend  of  Dickens,  Thackeray,  Browning,  and  other 
noted  men.  Leslie  tells  the  following  incident  at 
a  dinner  party  at  the  house  of  Sir  Francis  Chan- 
trey,  the  sculptor.  "Edwin  Landseer,  the  best  of 
mimics,  gave  a  capital  specimen  of  Chantrey's 
manner,  and  at  Chantrey's  own  table.  Dining  at 


384  SIR   EDWIN  LANDSEER. 

his  house  with  a  large  party,  after  the  cloth  was 
removed  from  the  beautifully  polished  table,  — 
Chantrey's  furniture  was  all  beautiful,  —  Landseer's 
attention  was  called  by  him  to  the  reflections,  in  the 
table,  of  the  company,  furniture,  lamps,  etc.  'Come 
and  sit  in  my  place  and  study  perspective,'  said  our 
host,  and  went  himself  to  the  fire.  As  soon  as 
Landseer  was  seated  in  Chantrey's  chair,  he  turned 
round,  and,  imitating  his  voice  and  manner,  said  to 
him :  '  Come,  young  man,  you  think  yourself  orna- 
mental; now  make  yourself  useful,  and  ring  the 
bell.'  Chantrey  did  as  he  was  desired ;  the  butler 
appeared,  and  was  perfectly  bewildered  at  hearing 
his  master's  voice,  from  the  head  of  the  'table, 
order  some  claret,  while  he  saw  him  standing 
before  the  fire." 

Some  one  urged  Sydney  Smith  to  sit  to  Landseer 
for  his  portrait.  He  is  said  to  have  replied  in  the 
words  of  the  Syrian  messenger  to  the  prophet 
Elisha :  "  Is  thy  servant  a  dog,  that  he  should  do 
this  great  thing  ?  " 

At  another  time  Landseer  was  talking  to  Sydney 
Smith  aboiit  the  drama,  and  said :  "  With  your  love 
of  humor,  it  must  be  an  act  of  great  self-denial  to 
abstain  from  going  to  the  theatres."  The  witty 
clergyman  replied,  "  The  managers  are  very  polite ; 
they  send  me  free  admissions  which  I  can't  use, 
and,  in  return,  I  send  them  free  admissions  to 
St.  Paul's." 

Bewick,  the  artist,  said  :  "  Sir  Edwin  has  a  fine 
hand,  a  correct  eye,  refined  perceptions,  and  can 


SIR    EDWIN  LANDSEER.  385 

do  almost  anything  but  dance  on  the  slack  wire. 
He  is  a  fine  billiard-player,  plays  at  chess,  sings 
when  with  his  intimate  friends,  and  has  consider- 
able humor. 

"Landseer  is  sensitive,  delicate,  with  a  fine 
hand  for  manipulation, — up  to  all  the  finesse  of 
the  art ;  has  brushes  of  all  peculiarities  for  all 
difficulties ;  turns  his  picture  into  all  manner  of 
situation  and  light ;  looks  at  it  from  between  his 
legs,  —  and  all  with  the  strictly  critical  view  of 
discovering  hidden  defects,  falsities  of  drawing,  or 
imperfections.  See  to  what  perfection  he  carries 
his  perception  of  surface,  hair,  silk,  wool,  rock, 
grass,  foliage,  distance,  fog,  mist,  smoke !  how  he 
paints  the  glazed  or  watery  eye  !  " 

A  writer  in  the  London  Daily  News  says :  "  Sir 
Edwin's  method  of  composition  was  remarkably 
like  Scott's,  except  in  the  point  of  the  early  rising 
of  the  latter.  Landseer  went  late  to  bed,  and  rose 
very  late,  coming  down  to  breakfast  at  noon ;  but 
he  had  been  composing  perhaps  for  hours.  Scott 
declared  that  the  most  fertile  moments  for  re- 
sources, in  invention  especially,  were  those  between 
sleeping  and  waking,  or  rather  before  opening  the 
eyes  from  sleep,  while  the  brain  was  wide  awake. 
This,  much  prolonged,  was  Landseer's  time  for 
composing  his  pictures.  His  conception  once 
complete,  nothing  could  exceed  the  rapidity  of 
his  execution." 

In  1840,  at  the  country  house  of  Mr.  William 
Wells,  Landseer  had  his  first  violent  illness  asso- 


386  SIR  EDWIN  LANDSEER. 

elated  with  severe  depression,  to  which  attacks  he 
was  subject  all  the  rest  of  his  life.  He  went 
abroad  for  a  time,  travelling  in  France,  Switzer- 
land, and  Austria,  but  he  was  constantly  longing 
for  his  studio,  where,  he  said,  "his  works  were 
starving  for  him." 

"Coming  events  cast  their  shadows  before 
them,"  sometimes  called  "  The  Challenge,"  a 
vigorous  stag  bellowing  his  defiance  to  hunters 
or  other  animals  of  his  kind ;  "  Shoeing,"  which 
has  been  engraved  mdny  times,  the  mare,  Old 
Betty,  belonging  to  his  friend  Mr.  Jacob  Bell ; 
and  "  The  Otter  Speared,"  a  huntsman  surrounded 
by  yelping  dogs,  while  he  uplifts  a  poor  otter  on 
his  spear,  were  all  exhibited  in  1844,  and  won  great 
praise. 

From  Sir  Edwin's  sporting-scenes  many  persons 
gained  the  impression  that  he  was  a  keen  sports- 
man, which  was  not  the  case.  Ewen  Cameron,  an 
old  forest  keeper  of  Glencoe,  who  for  more  than 
twenty -four  years  accompanied  Landseer  with  the 
sketch-book  and  gun,  tells  how  the  highland  gillies 
were  annoyed  when  a  magnificent  stag  came 
bounding  toward  them,  and  Sir  Edwin  hastily 
thrust  his  gun  into  their  hands,  saying,  "  Here  ! 
take !  take  this ! "  while  he  pulled  out  his  book 
and  began  to  sketch.  They  murmured  greatly  in 
Gaelic,  but,  says  Cameron,  "  Sir  Edwin  must  have 
had  some  Gaelic  in  him,  for  he  was  that  angry  for 
the  rest  of  the  day,  it  made  them  very  careful  of 
speaking  Gaelic  in  his  hearing  after." 


SIB   EDWIN  LANDSEER.  387 

The  companion  pictures  "Peace "and  "War," 
painted  in  1846  —  the  former  a  beautiful  scene  on 
a  cliff  overlooking  Dover  harbor,  the  latter  a  ruined 
cottage  with  a  dying  horse  and  dead  rider  near  the 
door  —  were  sold  to  Mr.  Vernon  for  seventy-five 
hundred  dollars.  The  publishers  of  the  engrav- 
ings from  these  pictures  paid  Landseer  fifteen 
thousand  dollars  for  them.  "The  Stag  at  Bay," 
belonging  to  the  Marquis  of  Breadalbane,  one  of 
Landseer's  strongest  pictures,  appeared  the  same 
year. 

In  1848,  "  A  Eandom  Shot,"  one  of  the  artist's 
most  pathetic  pictures,  was  painted.  Stephens 
thus  describes  it:  "It  is  a  snow  piece,  the  scene 
high  on  the  mountain,  whose  most  distant  ridges 
rise  above  the  mist.  The  snow  lies  smooth ;  and 
for  miles,  so  far  as  the  eye  can  penetrate  the 
vapor,  there  is  nothing  but  snow,  which  covers, 
but  does  not  hide,  the  shapes  of  the  hilltops.  A 
few  footprints  show  that  a  doe  has  come  hither, 
attracted,  doubtless,  by  her  knowledge  of  a  pool  of 
unfrozen  water  which  would  assuage  her  thirst. 
Some  careless  shooter,  firing  into  a  herd  of  deer, 
had  hit  the  doe,  whose  fawn  was  with  her,  and, 
mortally  wounded,  she  came  to  die ;  the  poor  fawn 
had  followed.  There  the  victim  fell ;  there  the 
innocent  one  strove,  long  after  the  mothers  form 
was  cold,  to  obtain  milk  where  an  unfailing  source 
had  been.  The  mother  has  fallen  on  her  side  ;  the 
long  limbs,  that  once  went  so  swiftly,  are  useless, 
and  the  last  breath  of  her  nostrils  has  melted  the 


388  SIR   EDWIN  LAND  SEER. 

snow,  so  that,  stained  with  her  blood,  the  water 
trickled  downwards  until  it  froze  again." 

Monkhouse  says,  in  his  "  Landseer  Studies "  : 
"He  painted  dogs  and  deer  as  no  man  ever  painted 
them  before ;  he  inspired  one  with  a  humor  and 
both  with  a  poetry  beyond  all  parallel  in  art ;  he 
added  to  this  a  feeling  for  the  grandeur  and  sub- 
limity of  nature,  which  gave  to  his  pictures  a 
charm  and  a  sentiment  which  all  can  feel ;  he 
never  painted  anything  false  or  ignoble,  vulgar  or 
unmanly  ;  he  won  as  an  artist  purely  the  affec- 
tion and  admiration  of  a  whole  people  as  scarcely 
any  man,  not  a  poet,  or  a  soldier,  or  a  statesman, 
or  a  philosopher,  has  ever  won  them  before.  .  .  . 

"  Landseer  may  be  said  to  have  mastered  other 
animals,  but  the  deer  mastered  him.  He  raised 
dogs  almost  to  the  scale  of  humanity,  but  deer 
raised  him  to  a  level  of  higher  being.  His  love 
for  the  deer  may  not  have  been  so  deep,  but  it  was 
more  elevating,  less  self-regarding,  and  it  ended  at 
last  in  stimulating  his  imagination  to  produce  pic- 
tures deeper  in  thought  and  more  awful  in  senti- 
ment than  any  attempted  by  an  animal  painter 
before." 

A  writer  in  Comhill  says  :  "  Landseer's  percep- 
tions of  character  were  remarkably  acute.  Not 
only  did  he  know  what  was  passing  in  the  hearts 
of  dogs,  but  he  could  read  pretty  closely  into  those 
of  men  and  women  also.  The  love  of  truth  was  an 
instinct  with  him ;  his  common  phrase  about  those 
he  estimated  highly  was  that  'they  had  the  true 


SIR  EDWIN  LANDSEER.  389 

ring.'  This  was  most  applicable  to  himself ;  there 
was  no  alloy  in  his  metal ;  he  was  true  to  himself 
and  to  others.  This  was  proved  in  many  passages 
of  his  life,  when  nearly  submerged  by  those 
disappointments  and  troubles  which  are  more 
especially  felt  by  sensitive  organizations  such 
as  that  which  it  was  his  fortune  —  or  misfortune 
—  to  possess. 

"  It  was  a  pity  that  Landseer,  who  might  have 
done  so  much  for  the  good  of  the  animal  kind, 
never  wrote  on  the  subject  of  their  treatment.  He 
had  a  strong  feeling  against  the  way  some  dogs  are 
tied  up,  only  allowed  their  freedom  now  and  then. 
He  used  to  say  a  man  would  fare  better  tied  up 
than  a  dog,  because  the  former  can  take  his  coat 
off,  but  a  dog  lives  in  his  forever.  He  declared  a 
tied-up  dog,  without  daily  exercise,  goes  mad,  or 
dies,  in  three  years. 

"  His  wonderful  power  over  dogs  is  well 
known.  An  illustrious  lady  asked  him  how  it 
was  that  he  gained  his  knowledge.  *  By  peeping 
into  their  hearts,  ma'am,'  was  his  answer.  I 
remember  once  being  wonderfully  struck  with  the 
mesmeric  attraction  he  possessed  with  them.  A 
large  party  of  his  friends  were  with  him  at  his 
house  in  St.  John's  Wood ;  his  servant  opened  the 
door ;  three  or  four  dogs  rushed  in,  one  a  very 
fierce-looking  mastiff.  The  ladies  recoiled,  but 
there  was  no  fear;  the  creature  bounded  up  to 
Landseer,  treated  him  like  an  old  friend,  with 
most  expansive  demonstrations  of  delight.  Some 


390  SIR   EDWIN  LANDSEER. 

one  remarking  '  how  fond  the  dog  seemed  of  him/ 
he  said,  '  I  never  saw  it  before  in  my  life.' 

"Would  that  horse-trainers  could  have  learned 
from  him  how  horses  could  be  broken  in  or  trained 
more  easily  by  kindness  than  by  cruelty.  Once 
when  visiting  him  he  came  in  from  his  meadow 
looking  somewhat  dishevelled  and  tired.  'What 
have  you  been  doing  ? '  we  asked  him.  '  Only 
teaching  some  horses  tricks  for  Astley's,  and  here 
is  my  whip,'  he  said,  showing  us  a  piece  of  sugar 
in  his  hand.  He  said  that  breaking  in  horses 
meant  more  often  breaking  their  hearts,  and  rob- 
bing them  of  all  their  spirit.  .  .  ." 

In  1850,  the  "  Dialogue  of  Waterloo  "  was  pro- 
duced, with  the  Duke  of  Wellington  and  his 
daughter-in-law,  the  Marchioness  Douro,  on  the 
battlefield.  It  is  said  that  eighteen  thousand  dol- 
lars were  paid  for  the  copyright  of  this  painting. 

This  year,  Landseer  was  made  a  knight,  at  the 
age  of  forty-eight.  The  next  year,  1851,  he 
painted  the  well-known  "Monarch  of  the  Glen." 
"  The  Midsiimmer  Night's  Dream "  of  the  same 
year,  painted  for  the  great  engineer,  Isambard  K. 
Brunei,  who  ordered  a  series  of  Shakespearian  sub- 
jects from  different  artists,  at  four  hundred  guineas 
each,  was  afterwards  sold  to  Earl  Brownlow  for 
fourteen  thousand  dollars. 

In  1857,  in  "  Scene  in  Brae-mar  —  Highland 
Deer,"  we  have,  says  Stephens,  "the  grandest 
stag  which  came  from  his  hands.  This  was  sold 
in  1868  for  four  thousand  guineas."  "  The  Maid 


SIR   EDWIN  LANDSEER.  391 

and  the  Magpie,"  painted  for  Jacob  Bell,  and  by 
him  presented  to  the  nation,  appeared  in  1858. 
The  pretty  girl  is  about  to  milk  a  cow,  but  turns  to 
listen  to  her  lover,  when  a  magpie  steals  a  silver 
spoon  from  one  of  the  wooden  shoes  at  her  side. 
In  connection  with  this  picture,  M.  F.  Sweetser 
tells  this  incident : 

"Sir  Edwin  once  painted  a  picture  for  Jacob 
Bell  for  one  hundred  guineas,  which  the  latter  soon 
afterwards  sold  for  two  thousand  guineas.  Placing 
the  latter  amount  in  Landseer's  bank,  Mr.  Bell 
narrated  the  circumstance,  suppressing  both  his 
own  name  and  that  of  the  purchaser,  and  adding 
that  the  seller  would  not  keep  the  money,  but 
wanted  another  picture  painted  for  it.  The  master 
was  so  charmed  with  this  generous  act  that  he 
said,  'Well,  he  shall  have  a  good  one.'  And 
afterwards,  pressing  Bell  to  tell  him  who  his  bene- 
factor was,  the  latter  exclaimed,  in  the  words  of 
Nathan,  the  Israelite  :  '  I  am  the  man.'  The  pic- 
ture which  resulted  was  '  The  Maid  and  the  Mag- 
pie.' " 

In  1860,  "Flood  in  the  Highlands,"  called  by 
Stephens  "probably  the  strongest  of  all  his  pic- 
tures," was  painted.  He  was  now  fifty-eight.  "  I 
remember  him,"  says  Stephens,  "  during  the  paint- 
ing of  this  picture,  on  the  Tuesday  before  it  was 
sent  to  the  Academy,  —  putting  a  few  touches  on 
the  canvas.  He  looked  as  if  about  to  become  old, 
although  his  age  by  no  means  justified  the  notion ; 
it  was  not  that  he  had  lost  activity  or  energy,  or 


392  SIR  EDWIN  LANDSEEK. 

that  his  form  had  shrunk,  for  he  moved  as  firmly 
and  swiftly  as  ever,  —  indeed  he  was  rather  demon- 
strative, stepping  on  and  off  the  platform  in  his 
studio  with  needless  display,  —  and  his  form  was 
stout  and  well  filled. 

"Nevertheless,  without  seeming  to  be  over- 
worked, he  did  not  look  robust,  and  he  had  a 
nervous  way  remarkable  in  so  distinguished  a 
man,  one  who  was  usually  by  no  means  uncon- 
scious of  himself,  and  yet,  to  those  he  liked, 
full  of  kindness.  The  wide  green  shade  which  he 
wore  above  his  eyes  projected  straight  from  his 
forehead,  and  cast  a  large  shadow  on  his  plump, 
somewhat  livid  features,  and,  in  the  shadow,  one 
saw  that  his  eyes  had  suffered.  The  gray  '  Tweed ' 
suit,  and  its  sober  trim,  a  little  emphatically 
'  quiet,'  marked  the  man ;  so  did  his  stout,  not  fat 
nor  robust,  figure  ;  rapid  movements,  and  utter- 
ances that  glistened  with  prompt  remarks,  sharp, 
concise,  with  quiet  humor,  but  not  seeking  occa- 
sions for  wit,  and  imbued  throughout  with  a  per- 
fect frankness,  distinguished  the  man." 

In  1864,  "Man  proposes,  God  disposes,"  was 
painted,  an  Arctic  incident  suggested  by  the  find- 
ing of  the  relics  of  Sir  John  Franklin.  The 
purchaser  of  this  picture,  Sweetser  says,  paid 
Landseer  twenty-five  hundred  pounds  for  it. 

In  1865,  "  The  Connoisseurs  "  was  painted,  and 
presented  by  Sir  Edwin  to  the  Prince  of  Wales. 
It  represents  two  dogs  looking  over  the  shoulders 
of  the  artist,  while  he  makes  a  drawing.  Monk- 


SIR  EDWIN  LANDSEER.  393 

house  says  :  "  The  man  behind  his  work  was  seen 
through  it,  —  sensitive,  variously  gifted,  manly, 
genial,  tender-hearted,  simple,  and  unaffected,  a 
lover  of  animals  and  children  and  humanity ;  and 
if  any  one  wishes  to  see  at  a  glance  nearly  all  we 
have  written,  let  him  look  at  his  own  portrait, 
painted  by  himself,  with  a  canine  connoisseur  on 
either  side." 

"Lady  Godiva's  Prayer,"  painted  in  1866,  was 
sold  in  1874  for  £3360,  or  nearly  seventeen  thou- 
sand dollars.  This  year,  Sir  Edwin  first  appeared 
as  a  sculptor,  in  a  vigorous  model  of  a  "  Stag  at 
Bay."  In  1867  his  bronze  Lions  were  placed  at 
the  base  of  the  Nelson  monument  in  Trafalgar 
Square,  thus  associating  two  great  name's.  The 
government  had  commissioned  him  to  execute  this 
work  eight  years  before,  in  1859,  but  sickness  and 
other  matters  had  prevented.  That  this  commis- 
sion was  a  care  to  him,  is  shown  by  a. letter  to  a 
friend:  "I  have  got  trouble  enough;  ten  or  twelve 
pictures  about  which  I  am  tortured,  and  a  large 
national  monument  to  complete.  ...  If  I  am 
bothered  about  anything  and  everything,  no  matter 
what,  I  know  my  head  will  not  stand  it  much 
longer." 

Again  he  writes :  "  My  health  (or  rather  con- 
dition) is  a  mystery  beyond  human  intelligence. 
I  sleep  well  seven  hours,  and  awake  tired  and 
jaded,  and  do  not  rally  till  after  luncheon.  J.  L. 
came  down  yesterday  and  did  her  best  to  cheer 
me.  ...  I  return  to  my  own  home  in  spite  of  a 


394  SIR  EDWIN  LANDSEER. 

kind  invitation  from  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gladstone  to 
meet  Princess  Louise  at  breakfast." 

"The  Swannery  invaded  by  Sea-Eagles"  was 
one  of  Landseer's  most  notable  later  works.  "  The 
Sick  Monkey,"  painted  in  1870,  was  purchased  by 
Thomas  Baring  for  three  thousand  guineas,  and 
bequeathed  to  Lord  Northbrook,  the  Viceroy  of 
India. 

When  Sir  Charles  Eastlake  died,  the  presidency 
of  the  Royal  Academy  was  urged  upon  Landseer, 
but  he  declined.  He  had  become  wealthy  through 
his  painting,  his  property  amounting  to  about  one 
million  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars, 
which  he  left  mostly  to  his  brothers  and  sisters. 

Sir  Edwin's  life  was  now  drawing  to  its  close. 
Miss  Mackey  says,  in  Cornhill,  concerning  his  last 
long  illness :  "  Was  ever  any  one  more  tenderly 
nursed  and  cared  for  ?  Those  who  had  loved  him 
in  his  bright  wealth  of  life  now  watched  the  long 
days  one  by  one  telling  away  its  treasure.  He  was 
very  weak  in  body  latterly,  but  sometimes  he  used 
to  go  into  the  garden  and  walk  round  the  paths, 
leaning  on  his  sister's  arm.  One  beautiful  spring 
morning,  he  looked  up  and  said:  'I  shall  never  see 
the  green  leaves  again ; '  but  he  did  see  them, 
Mrs.  Mackenzie,  his  sister,  said.  He  lived  through 
another  spring.  He  -  used  to  lie  in  his  studio, 
where  he  would  have  liked  to  die.  To  the  very 
end  he  did  not  give  up  his  work ;  but  he  used  to  go 
on,  painting  a  little  at  a  time,  faithful  to  his  task. 

"  When  he  was  almost  at  his  worst,  so  some  one 


TURNER. 


SIR   EDWIN  LANDSEEE.  395 

told  me,  they  gave  him  his  easel  and  his  canvas, 
and  left  him  alone  in  the  studio,  in  the  hope  that 
he  might  take  up  his  work  and  forget  his  suffering. 
When  they  came  back,  they  found  that  he  had 
painted  the  picture  of  a  little  lamb  lying  beside  a 
lion.  This  and  '  The  Font '  were  the  last  pictures 
ever  painted  by  that  faithful  hand. 

" '  The  Font '  is  an  allegory  of  all  creeds  and  all 
created  things  coming  together  into  the  light  of 
truth.  The  Queen  is  the  owner  of  '  The  Font.' 
She  wrote  to  her  old  friend  and  expressed  her 
admiration  for  it,  and  asked  to  become  the  pos- 
sessor. Her  help  and  sympathy  brightened  the 
sadness  of  those  last  days  for  him.  It  is  well 
known  that  he  appealed  to  her  once,  when 
haunted  by  some  painful  apprehensions,  and  that 
her  wise  and  judicious  kindness  came  to  the  help 
of  his  nurses.  She  sent  him  back  a  message,  bade 
him  not  be  afraid,  and  to  trust  to  those  who  were 
doing  their  best  for  him,  and  in  whom  she  herself 
had  every  confidence.  .  .  . 

"  He  wished  to  die  in  his  studio,  his  dear  studio, 
for  which  he  used  to  long  when  he  was  away,  and . 
where  he  lay  so  long  expecting  the  end ;  but  it  was 
in  his  own  room  that  he  slept  away.  His  brother 
was  with  him.  His  old  friend  came  into  the  room. 
He  knew  him  and  pressed  his  hand." 

Landseer  died  on  the  morning  of  October  1, 1873, 
and  was  buried  October  11,  with  distinguished 
honors,  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral. 


TURNER. 


"M  BURNER  was  unquestionably,  in  his  best  time, 
-*-  the  greatest  master  of  water  color  who  had 
ever  lived.  He  may  have  been  excelled  since  then 
in  some  special  departments  of  the  art,  in  some 
craft  of  execution,  or  in  the  knowledge  of  some 
particular  thing  in  nature ;  but  no  one  has  ever 
deserved  such  generally  high  rank  as  Turner  in 
the  art  of  water- color  painting.  His  superiority 
even  goes  so  far  that  the  art,  in  his  hands,  is  like 
another  art,  a  fresh  discovery  of  his  own. 

"The  color,  in  his  most  delicate  work,  hardly 
seems  to  be  laid  on  the  paper  by  any  means 
known  to  us,  but  suggests  the  idea  of  a  vaporous 
deposit,  and  besides  the  indescribable  excellence 
of  those  parts  of  Turner's  water-colors  which  do 
not  look  as  if  they  were  painted  at  all,  there  is 
excellence  of  another  kind  in  those  parts  which 
exhibit  dexterities  of  execution.  Nor  is  the 
strange  perfection  of  his  painting  in  water  color 
limited  to  landscape ;  his  studies  of  still  life, 
birds  and  their  plumage,  bits  of  interiors  at  Pet- 
worth,  etc.,  are  evidence  enough  that,  had  he 
chosen  to  paint  objects  rather  than  effects,  he 
might  have  been  as  wonderful  an  object  painter 


TURNER.  397 

as  William  Hunt  was.  though  in  a  different  and 
more  elevated  manner."  Thus  writes  Philip  Gilbei-t 
Hamerton. 

Turner  was  born  April  23,  1775,  in  Maiden 
Lane,  London,  over  a  barber  shop,  in  which  his 
father,  William  Turner,  lived  and  worked.  The 
latter  was  an  economical,  good-natured,  uneducated 
man,  who  taught  his  boy  to  be  honest  and  saving. 

The  mother,  Mary  Turner,  belonged  to  a  family 
of  Marshalls  or  Mallords  near  Nottingham,  supe- 
rior in  position  to  the  family  of  William  Turner. 
She  had  an  ungovernable  temper,  and  is  said  to 
have  led  the  barber  "a  sad  life."  Later,  she 
became  insane,  and  was  sent  to  an  asylum. 

The  boy  William  very  early  began  to  show  his 
skill  in  drawing.  In  his  first  school  at  New 
Brentford,  when  he  was  ten  years  old,  his  birds, 
flowers,  and  trees  on  the  walls  of  the  room  at- 
tracted attention,  so  that  his  schoolmates  often 
did  his  work  in  mathematics  for  him  while  he 
made  sketches.  His  father  had  intended  him  to 
be  a  barber,  but,  perceiving  the  lad's  talent,  en- 
couraged him,  hung  his  drawings  in  his  shop 
windows,  and  sold  them  for  a  few  pence  or  shil- 
lings each. 

At  twelve  years  of  age,  William  was  sent  to 
"Mr.  Palice,  a  floral  drawing-master"  in  Soho;  at 
thirteen,  to  a  Mr.  Coleman  at  Margate,  where  he 
loved  and  studied  the  sea;  and  at  fourteen,  to  the 
Eoyal  Academy.  Meanwhile,  he  earned  money  by 
coloring  prints,  making  backgrounds  and  skies  for 


398  TURNEK. 

architects'  plans,  and  copying  pictures  for  Dr. 
Muuro,  who  lived  in  one  of  the  palaces  on  the 
Strand.  This  physician  owned  many  Rembrandts 
and  Gainsboroughs,  with  sketches  by  Claude,  Titian, 
Vandevelde,  and  others. 

This  house  proved  a  valuable  place  for  study  to 
the  barber's  son,  who  considered  himself  fortunate 
to  receive  half  a  crown  and  a  supper  for  each  even- 
ing's work. 

When  pitied  by  some  one  in  later  life,  because 
of  the  hard  work  of  his  boyhood,  he  said,  "  Well ! 
And  what  could  be  better  practice  ?  " 

In  1792,  when  he  was  seventeen,  he  received  a 
commission  from  Mr.  J.  Walker,  an  engraver,  to 
make  drawings  for  his  Copperplate  Magazine,  and 
soon  after  from  Mr.  Harrison  for  his  Pocket  Maga- 
zine. To  make  these  sketches,  the  youth  travelled 
through  Wales,  on  a  pony  lent  him  by  a  friend, 
and  on  foot,  with  his  baggage  in  his  handkerchief 
tied  to  the  end  of  a  stick,  through  Nottingham, 
Cambridge,  Lincoln,  Peterborough,  Windsor,  Ely, 
the  Isle  of  Wight,  and  elsewhere. 

"The  result  of  these  -tours,"  says  W.  Cosmo 
Monkhouse,  "may  be  .said  to  have  been  the  per- 
fection of  his  technical  skill,  the  partial  displace- 
ment of  traditional  notions  of  composition,  and 
the  storing  of  his  memory  with  infinite  effects  of 
nature." 

His  first  water  color  at  the  Royal  Academy 
Exhibition  was  a  picture  of  Lambeth  Palace, 
when  he  was  fifteen,  and  his  first  oil  painting 


TURNER.  399 

at  the  exhibition,  according  to  Redgrave,  the 
"Rising  Squall,  Hot  Wells,"  when  he  was  eigh- 
teen. Hamerton  thinks  "Moonlight,"  a  study  in 
Milbank,  was  his  first  exhibited  work  in  oil.  "  The 
picture,"  he  says,  "shows  not  the  least  trace  of 
genius,  yet  it  has  always  been  rather  a  favorite 
with  me  for  its  truth  to  nature  in  one  thing.  All 
the  ordinary  manufacturers  of  moonlights  —  and 
moonlights  have  been  manufactured  in  deplorably 
large  quantities  for  the  market  —  represent  the 
light  of  our  satellite  as  a  blue  and  cold  light ; 
whereas  in  nature,  especially  in  the  southern  sum- 
mer, it  is  often  pleasantly  rich  and  warm.  Turner 
did  not  follow  the  usual  receipt,  but  had  the  cour- 
age to  make  his  moonlight  warm,  though  he  had 
not  as  yet  the  skill  to  express  the  ineffably  mellow 
softness  of  the  real  warm  moonlights  in  nature." 

At  twenty-one,  Turner  hired  a  house  in  Hand 
Court,  and  began  to  teach  drawing  in  London  and 
elsewhere  at  ten  shillings  a  lesson.  But  he  soon 
grew  impatient  of  his  fashionable  pupils,  and  the 
teaching  was  abandoned. 

At  twenty-two,  he  journeyed  into  the  counties 
of  Yorkshire  and  Kent,  and  soon  produced  "  Morn- 
ing on  the  Coniston  Fells,"  in  1798 ;  "  Cattle  in 
Water;  Buttermere  Lake,"  1798;  and  "Norham 
Castle  on  the  Tweed."  Twenty  years  afterward, 
as  he  was  passing  Norham  Castle,  with  Cadell,  an 
Edinburgh  publisher,  he  took  off  his  hat  to  the 
castle.  Cadell  expressed  surprise.  "Oh,"  said 
Turner,  "  I  made  a  drawing  or  painting  of  Norham 


400  TURNER. 

several  years  ago.  It  took ;  and  from  that  day  to 
this  I  have  had  as  much  to  do  as  my  hands  could 
execute." 

In  Yorkshire,  the  rising  young  artist,  natural 
and  genial  in  manner,  though  small  and  some- 
what plain  in  person,  made  many  warm  friends. 
He  was  often  a  guest  at  Farnley  Hall,  owned  by 
Mr.  Hawkesworth  Fawkes,  who  afterward  adorned 
his  home  with  fifty  thousand  dollars'  worth  of 
Turner's  pictures. 

Mr.  Fawkes's  son  speaks  of  "the  fun,  frolic, 
and  shooting  we  enjoyed  together,  and  which, 
whatever  may  be  said  by  others  of  his  temper 
and  disposition,  have  proved  to  me  that  he  was, 
in  his  hours  of  distraction  from  his  professional 
labors,  as  kindly-hearted  a  man,  and  as  capable  of 
enjoyment  and  fun  of  all  kinds,  as  any  I  ever 
knew." 

Mrs.  Wheeler,  a  friend  in  these  early  years,  says  : 
"  Of  all  the  light-hearted,  merry  creatures  I  ever 
knew,  Turner  was  the  most  so ;  and  the  laughter 
and  fun  that  abounded  when  he  was  an  inmate  of 
our  cottage  was  inconceivable,  particularly  with 
the  juvenile  members  of  the  family." 

Somewhere  between  the  ages  of  nineteen  and 
twenty-three,  a  sorrow  came  which  seemed  com- 
pletely to  change  Turner's  nature.  While  at  the 
Margate  school,  he  had  fallen  in  love  with  the 
sister  of  a  schoolmate  ;  the  love  had  been  recipro- 
cated, and  an  engagement  followed  a  few  years 
later.  During  a  long  absence  in  his  art  work, 


TURNER.  401 

their  letters  were  intercepted  by  the  young  lady's 
stepmother,  who  finally  prevailed  upon  her  to 
become  engaged  to  another.  A  week  before  the 
wedding,  Turner  arrived  at  Margate,  and  besought 
her  to  marry  him ;  but  his  betrothed  considered 
herself  in  honor  bound  to  the  new  lover.  The 
marriage  proved  a  most  unhappy  one,  and  Turner 
remained  a  disappointed  and  solitary  man  through 
life. 

His  art  now  became  his  one  absorbing  thought ; 
he  worked  early  and  late,  often  rising  for  work  at 
four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  saying  sadly  that 
there  were  "no  holidays  for  him." 

In  1799,  when  he  was  twenty-four,  he  was  made 
an  associate  of  the  Royal  Academy,  and  a  full 
academician  in  1802.  Hamerton  says  :  "  His  elec- 
tion is  the  more  remarkable,  that  he  had  done  noth- 
ing whatever  to  bring  it  about,  except  his  fair  hard 
work  in  his  profession.  He  was  absolutely  inca- 
pable of  social  courtiership  in  any  of  its  dis- 
guises. He  gave  no  dinners,  he  paid  no  calls, 
he  did  nothing  to  make  the  academicians  believe 
that  he  would  be  a  credit  to  their  order  in  any 
social  sense.  Even  after  his  election,  he  would 
not  go  to  thank  his  electors,  in  obedience  to  the 
established  usage.  '  If  they  had  not  been  satisfied 
with  my  pictures,'  he  said  to  Stothard,  'they 
would  not  have  elected  me.  Why,  then,  should 
I  thank  them  ?  Why  thank  a  man  for  performing 
a  simple  duty  ? '  His  views  on  the  subject  were 
clearly  wrong,  for  the  rules  of  good  manners  very 


402  TURNER. 

frequently  require  us  to  thank  people  for  perform- 
ing simple  duties,  and  the  academicians  were  not 
under  any  obligation  to  elect  the  young  painter  so 
soon :  but  how  completely  Turner's  conduct  in 
this  matter  proves  that  he  can  only  have  been 
elected  on  his  merits !  .  .  . 

"His  elevation  to  the  full  membership  was  of 
immense  value  to  him  in  his  career,  and  he  knew 
this  so  well  that  he  remained  deeply  attached  to 
the  Academy  all  his  life.  He  was  associate  or 
member  of  it  for  a  full  half-century,  and  during 
fifty  years  was  only  three  times  absent  from  its 
exhibitions." 

This  year,  1802,  he  removed  to  64  Harley  Street, 
taking  his  plain  old  father  home  to  live  with  him. 
He  took  his  first  tour  on  the  Continent,  this  year, 
making  studies  of  Mont  Blanc,  the  Swisa  lakes 
and  mountain  passes.  The  exhibitions  of  1803  to 
1806  contained,  among  other  pictures,  "  The  Vint- 
age at  Macon,"  the  celebrated  "  Calais  Pier "  in  a 
gale ;  "  The  Source  of  the  Arveiron,"  "  Narcissus 
and  Echo,"  "Edinburgh  from  Calton  Hill;"  his 
famous  "Shipwreck,"  now  in  the  National  Gal- 
lery ;  and  the  magnificent  "  Goddess  of  Discord 
choosing  the  Apple  of  Contention  in  the  Garden 
of  Hesperides,"  also  in  the  National  Gallery. 

In  1807,  Turner  began,  at  the  suggestion  of  his 
friend,  Mr.  W.  F.  Wells,  the  Liber  Studiorum, 
issued  in  dark  blue  covers,  each  containing  five 
plates,  the  whole  series  of  one  hundred  plates  to 
be  divided  into  historical,  landscape,  pastoral, 


TURNER.  403 

mountainous,  marine,  and  architectural.  The  work 
was  intended  as  a  rival  to  Claude  Lorraine's  Liber 
Veritatis. 

After  seventy  plates  had  been  published,  the 
project  came  to  an  end  in  1816,  because  of  dis- 
agreement with  engravers,  and  lack  of  patronage. 
The  principal  pictures  were  "^Esacus  and  Hes- 
peria,"  "Jason,"  "Procris  and  Cephalus,"  the 
"Fifth  and  Tenth  Plagues  of  Egypt,"  "Christ 
and  the  Woman  of  Samaria,"  "Rizpah,"  "Raglan 
Castle,"  the  "  River  Wye,"  "  Solway  Moss,"  "  In- 
verary,"  the  "  Yorkshire  Coast,"  "  Mer  de  Glace," 
the  "Lake  of  Thun,"  "St.  Gothard  Pass,"  the 
"Alps  from  Grenoble,"  "  Dunstan  borough  Castle," 
and  others. 

"So  hopeless  and  worthless  did  the  enterprise 
seem,  at  one  time,"  says  M.  F.  Sweetser,  "that 
Charles  Turner,  the  engraver,  used  the  proofs  and 
trials  of  effect  as  kindling  paper.  Many  years 
later,  Colnaghi,  the  great  print-dealer,  caused  him 
to  hunt  up  the  remaining  proofs  in  his  possession, 
and  gave  him  fifteen  hundred  pounds  for  them. 
'  Good  God  ! '  cried  the  old  engraver,  '  I  have  been 
burning  bank-notes  all  my  life.'  ...  In  later  days 
three  thousand  pounds  had  been  paid  for  a  single 
copy  of  the  Liber." 

"  The  most  obvious  intention  of  the  work,"  says 
Monkhouse,  "was  to  show  Turner's  own  power, 
and  there  never  was,  and  perhaps  never  will  be 
again,  such  an  exhibition  of  genius  in  the  same 
direction.  No  rhetoric  can  say  for  it  as  much  as 


404  TUKNER. 

it  says  for  itself  in  those  ninety  plates,  twenty  of 
which  were  never  published.  If  he  did  not  ex- 
haust art  or  nature,  he  may  be  fairly  said  to  have 
exhausted  all  that  was  then  known  of  landscape 
art,  and  to  have  gone  further  than  any  one  else  in 
the  interpretation  of  nature.  .  .  . 

"  Amongst  his  more  obvious  claims  to  the  first 
place  among  landscape  artists  are  his  power  of 
rendering  atmospherical  effects,  and  the  structure 
and  growth  of  things.  He  not  only  knew  how  a 
tree  looked,  but  he  showed  how  it  grew.  Others 
may  have  drawn  foliage  with  more  habitual  fidel- 
ity, but  none  ever  drew  trunks  and  branches  with 
such  knowledge  of  their  inner  life.  .  .  .  Others 
have  drawn  the  appearance  of  clouds,  but  Turner 
knew  how  they  formed.  Others  have  drawn  rocks, 
but  he  could  give  their  structure,  consistency,  and 
quality  of  surface,  with  a  few  deft  lines  and  a 
wash ;  others  could  hide  things  in  a  mist,  but  he 
could  reveal  things  through  mist.  Others  could 
make  something  like  a  rainbow,  but  he,  almost 
alone,  and  without  color,  could  show  it  standing 
out,  a  bow  of  light  arrested  by  vapor  in  mid-air,  not 
flat  upon  a  mountain,  or  printed  on  a  cloud.  .  .  . 
If  we  seek  the  books  from  which  his  imagination 
took  fire,  we  have  the  Bible  and  Ovid ;  the  first 
of  small,  the  latter  of  great  and  almost  solitary 
power.  Jason,  daring  the  huge  glittering  serpent ; 
Syrinx,  fleeing  from  Pan ;  Cephalus  and  Procris ; 
^Esacus  and  Hesperia ;  Glaucus  and  Scylla ;  Narcis- 
sus and  Echo.  If  we  want  to  know  the  artists  he 


TURNER.  405 

most  admired  and  imitated,  or  the  places  to  which 
he  had  been,  we  shall  find  easily  nearly  all  the 
former,  and  sufficient  of  the  latter  to  show  the 
wide  range  of  his  travel.  In  a  word,  one  who  has 
carefully  studied  the  Liber  has  indeed  little  to 
learn  of  the  range  and  power  of  Turner's  art  and 
mind,  except  his  color  and  his  fatalism." 

In  1808,  Turner  was  appointed  professor  of  per- 
spective in  the  Eoyal  Academy,  which  position  he 
held  for  thirty  years,  though  he  rarely  gave  lectures 
to  students,  owing  to  his  confused  manner  and 
obscurity  in  the  use  of  language.  Euskin  says : 
"  The  zealous  care  with  which  Turner  endeavored 
to  do  his  duty  is  proved  by  a  large  existing  series 
of  drawings,  exquisitely  tinted,  and  often  com- 
pletely colored,  all  by  his  own  hand,  of  the  most 
difficult  perspective  subjects ;  illustrating  not  only 
directions  of  line,  but  effects  of  light,  with  a  care 
and  completion  which  would  put  the  work  of  any 
ordinary  teacher  to  utter  shame.  In  teaching 
generally,  he  would  neither  waste  time  nor  spare 
it ;  he  would  look  over  a  student's  drawing  at  the 
Academy,  point  to  a  defective  part,  make  a  scratch 
on  the  paper  at  the  side,  say  nothing.  If  the  stu- 
dent saw  what  was  wanted,  and  did  it,  Turner  was 
delighted;  but  if  the  student  could  not  follow, 
Turner  left  him." 

Turner  this  year  moved  to  the  Upper  Mall, 
Hammersmith,  where  his  garden  extended  to  the 
Thames.  In  this  he  had  a  summer-house,  where 
some  of  his  best  work  was  done.  He  still  retained 


406  TURNER. 

the  Harley-Street  house,  and  lived  in  it  much  the 
life  of  a  recluse.  Mr.  Thornbury  tells  the  follow- 
ing incident :  — 

"  Two  ladies  called  upon  Turner  while  he  lived 
in  Harley  Street.  On  sending  in  their  names, 
after  having  ascertained  that  he  was  at  home,  they 
were  politely  requested  to  walk  in,  and  were  shown 
into  a  large  sitting-room  without  a  fire.  This  was 
in  the  depth  of  winter ;  and  lying  about  in  various 
places  were  several  cats  without  tails.  In  a  short 
time  our  talented  friend  made  his  appearance,  ask- 
ing the  ladies  if  they  felt  cold.  The  youngest 
replied  in  the  negative ;  her  companion,  more 
curious,  wished  she  had  stated  otherwise,  as  she 
hoped  they  might  have  been  shown  into  his 
sanctum  or  studio.  After  a  little  conversation  he 
offered  them  wine  and  biscuits,  which  they  partook 
of  for  the  novelty,  such  an  event  being  almost  un- 
precedented in  his  house.  One  of  the  ladies  be- 
stowing some  notice  upon  the  cats,  he  was  induced 
to  remark  that  he  had  seven,  and  that  they  came 
from  the  Isle  of  Man." 

Turner  was  fond  of  his  pet  cats,  and  would  let 
no  harm  come  to  them.  After  he  had  moved,  in 
1812,  to  47  Queen- Anne  Street,  one  of  his  favorite 
pictures,  "  Bligh  Shore  "  was  used  as  a  covering 
for  a  window.  A  cat  desiring  to  enter  the  window 
scratched  the  picture  severely,  and  was  about  to  be 
punished  for  the  offence,  by  Mrs.  Danby,  the  house- 
keeper, when  Turner  said,  "Never  mind,"  and 
saved  the  cat  from  the  whipping. 


TURNER.  407 

At  his  house  in  Twickenham,  which  he  bought 
and  rebuilt  in  1813  or  1814,  calling  it  Solas  Lodge 
on  account  of  his  desire  to  be  alone,  and  afterwards 
Sandyconib  Lodge,  the  boys  named  him  "  Black- 
birdy,"  because  he  protected  the  blackbirds  in  the 
adjacent  trees,  not  allowing  their  nests  to  be 
robbed.  Turner  sold  this  place  after  having  owned 
it  about  twelve  years,  because  his  aged  father, 
whom  he  always  called  "  Dad,"  was  always  work- 
ing in  the  garden  and  catching  cold. 

The  eccentric  artist  must  have  been  at  this  time 
quite  rich,  as  well  as  famous.  He  had  painted 
"  The  Sun  rising  in  Mist,"  in  1807 ;  the  well-known 
"  Wreck  of  the  Minotaur,"  in  1810 ;  "  Apollo  kill- 
ing the  Python,"  in  1811 ;  "  Hannibal  and  his  Army 
crossing  the  Alps  in  a  Snowstorm,"  in  1812 ;  and 
"  Crossing  the  Brook,"  and  "  Dido  building  Car- 
thage," in  1815.  "  The  first  ('  Crossing  the 
Brook'),"  says  Monkhouse,  "is  the  purest  and 
most  beautiful  of  all  his  oil  pictures  of  the  loveli- 
ness of  English  scenery,  the  most  simple  in  its 
motive,  the  most  tranquil  in  its  sentiment,  the 
perfect  expression  of  his  enjoyment  of  the  exqui- 
site scenery  in  the  neighborhood  of  Plymouth. 
The  latter  ('  Dido  building  Carthage '),  with  all  its 
faults,  was  the  finest  of  the  kind  he  ever  painted, 
and  his  greatest  effect  in  the  way  of  color  before 
his  visit  to  Italy." 

It  is  said  that  "Crossing  the  Brook"  was  painted 
for  a  gentleman  who  ordered  it  with  the  promise 
of  paying  twenty-five  hundred  dollars  for  it,  but 


408  TURNER. 

was  disappointed  in  it  when  finished,  and  re- 
fused to  take  it.  Turner  was  afterwards  offered 
eight  thousand  dollars  for  it,  but  would  not  sell  it. 

In  1815,  the  artist,  now  forty  years  old,  was  again 
disappointed  in  love.  He  wrote  to  one  of  his  best 
friends,  Rev.  H.  Scott  Trimmer,  vicar  of  Heston, 
concerning  his  sister,  Miss  Trimmer:  "If  she 
would  but  waive  her  bashfulness,  or,  in  other 
words,  make  an  offer  instead  of  expecting  one,  the 
same  (Sandycomb  Lodge)  might  change  occu- 
piers." But  Miss  Trimmer  had,  at  this  time, 
another  suitor,  whom  she  married,  and  Turner 
never  again  attempted  to  win  a  wife. 

In  1817,  "  The  Decline  of  the  Carthaginian  Em- 
pire" was  exhibited,  a  companion  piece  to  the 
Building  of  Carthage.  Years  later,  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  Lord  Hardinge,  and  others,  offered  twenty- 
five  thousand  dollars  to  Turner  for  the  two  pic- 
tures, intending  to  present  them  to  the  National 
Gallery.  "It's  a  noble  offer,"  said  the  painter, 
"  but  I  have  willed  them."  He  had  already  made 
his  will,  privately,  giving  these  and  other  pictures 
to  the  nation. 

The  artist  is  said  to  have  once  remarked  to  his 
friend  Chantrey,  the  sculptor  :  "  Will  you  promise 
to  see  me  rolled  up  in  the  '  Carthage '  at  my 
burial  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  was  the  reply ;  "  and  I  promise  you  also 
that,  as  soon  as  you  are  buried,  I  will  see  that  you 
are  taken  up  and  unrolled." 

In  1819,   Turner  made  his  first  visit  to  Italy, 


TURNER.  409 

after  which  his  works  became  remarkable  for  their 
color.  In  1823,  says  Monkhouse,  "he  astonished 
the  world  with  the  first  of  those  magnificent  dreams 
of  landscape  loveliness  with  which  his  name  will 
always  be  specially  associated :  '  The  Bay  of  Baiae. 
with  Apollo  and  the  Sibyl.'  " 

The  "  Eivers  of  England "  was  published  in 
1826,  with  sixteen  engravings  after  Turner's 
designs.  Monkhouse  says  :  "  For  perfect  balance 
of  power,  for  the  mirroring  of  nature  as  it  appears 
to  ninety-nine  out  of  every  hundred,  for  fidelity  of 
color  to  both  sky  and  earth,  and  form  (especially 
of  trees),  for  carefulness  and  accuracy  of  drawing, 
for  work  that  neither  startles  you  by  its  eccen- 
tricity nor  puzzles  you  as  to  its  meaning,  which 
satisfies  without  cloying,  and  leaves  no  doubt  as  to 
the  truth  of  its  illusion,  there  is  none  to  compare 
with  these  drawings  of  his  of  England  after  his 
first  visit  to  Italy." 

During  this  year,  1826,  among  other  pictures, 
Turner  exhibited  his  "  Cologne  —  the  Arrival  of  a 
Packet-boat  —  Evening."  "  There  were,"  says 
Hamerton,  "  such  unity  and  serenity  in  the  work, 
and  such  a  glow  of  light  and  color,  that  it  seemed 
like  a  window  opened  upon  the  land  of  the  ideal, 
where  the  harmonies  of  things  are  more  perfect 
than  they  have  ever  been  in  the  common  world." 
The  picture  was  hung  between  two  of  Sir  Thomas 
Lawrence's  portraits,  the  golden  color  of  the 
"  Cologne  "  dulling  their  effect.  Turner  at  once 
covered  his  picture  with  lampblack,  thereby  spoil- 


410  TURNER. 

ing  it  for  the  public  view.  When  reproached  by 
the  critics,  he  said  :  "  Poor  Lawrence  Avas  so  un- 
happy. It  will  all  wash  off  after  the  Exhibition." 
"  Was  there  ever,"  says  Hamerton,  "  a  more  ex- 
quisitely beautiful  instance  of  self-sacrifice  ? " 
The  "  Cologne  "  was  sold,  in  1854,  to  Mr.  John 
Naylor,  for  two  thousand  guineas. 

Turner  made  designs  for  twenty  illustrations  in 
Bogers's  poem  of  "  Italy,"  for  which,  it  is  asserted, 
he  would  accept  but  five  guineas  each,  as  the 
execution  of  the  work  pleased  him  so  well ;  thir- 
teen illustrations  for  "  The  Provincial  Antiquities 
of  Scotland,"  for  which  Sir  Walter  Scott  wrote  the 
letter-press ;  and  twenty-six  pictures  for  Finden's 
"  Illustrations  of  the  Bible."  Turner  generally 
received  from  twenty  to  one  hundred  guineas  for 
each  drawing  used,  which  was  returned  to  him 
that  he  might  sell  it,  if  he  so  desired. 

In  1827  the  first  part  of  his  largest  series  of 
prints  was  published:  "England  and  Wales."  The 
work  was  discontinued  twelve  years  later,  because 
it  was  not  a  pecuniary  success. 

Bohn  offered  twenty-eight  hundred  pounds  for 
the  copper  plates  and  stock,  but  Turner  himself 
bid  them  in,  at  the  auction,  for  three  thousand 
pounds,  saying  to  Bohn :  "  So,  sir,  you  were  going 
to  buy  my  '  England  and  Wales '  to  sell  cheap,  I 
suppose  —  make  umbrella  prints  of  them,  eh  ?  But 
I  have  taken  care  of  that." 

Ke  disliked  steel  engravings,  or  any  plan  to 
cheapen  or  popularize  art.  He  once  told  Sir 


TURNER.  411 

Thomas  Lawrence  that  he  "  didn't  choose  to  be  a 
basket  engraver."  Being  asked  what  he  meant,  he 
replied  :  "  When  I  got  off  the  coach  t'other  day  at 
Hastings,  a  woman  came  up  with  a  basketful  of 
your  '  Mrs.  Peel,'  and  wanted  to  sell  me  one  for  a 
sixpence." 

The  painter's  hard-working  life,  with  little  com- 
fort save  what  fame  brings  to  a  man  who  eagerly 
seeks  it,  received  its  greatest  shock  in  the  death  of 
the  aged  father,  in  1830.  Turner  said,  "  The  loss 
was  like  that  of  an  only  child."  His  friends  the 
Trimmers  said,  "  He  never  appeared  the  same  man 
after  his  father's  death." 

The  plain  barber  had  lived  with  his  son  for 
thirty  years,  and  had  seen  him  gain  wealth  and 
renown.  He  could  do  little  save  to  encourage  with 
his  affection  and  be  proud  and  grateful  for  the 
painter's  success.  And  this  was  enough.  He  was 
buried  in  St.  Paul's,  Covent  Garden,  the  artist 
writing  this  inscription  for  his  monument :  — 

IN   THE    VAULT 

BENEATH   AND   NEAR  THIS   PLACE 
ABE   DEPOSITED   THE   REMAINS   OP 

WILLIAM   TURNER, 

MANY  YEARS   AN   INHABITANT   OF   THIS   PARISH, 

WHO   DIKD 

SEPTEMBER  21ST,  1830. 
TO   HIS   MEMORY   AND   OF   HIS   WIFE, 

MARY  ANN, 

THEIR  SON  J.  M.  W.  TURNER,  R.  A., 

HAS   PLACED   THIS   TABLET, 

AUGUST,  1832. 


412  TURNER. 

In  1832,  Turner  exhibited  his  memorable  "Childe 
Harold's  Pilgrimage;  Italy,"  in  which  he  seemed 
to  combine  the  mountains,  the  trees,  the  cities,  and 
the  skies  he  had  loved  in  that  beautiful  country. 
From  1833  to  1835  he  produced  his  exquisite 
series,  "  The  Rivers  of  France."  Kuskin  says : 
"Of  all  foreign  countries,  Turner  has  most  entirely 
entered  into  the  spirit  of  France ;  partly  because 
here  he  found  more  fellowship  of  scene  with  his 
own  England  ;  partly  because  an  amount  of 
thought  which  will  miss  of  Italy  or  Switzerland 
will  fathom  France  ;  partly  because  there  is  in  the 
French  foliage  and  forms  of  ground  much  that  is 
especially  congenial  with  his  own  peculiar  choice 
of  form.  .  .  .  He  still  remains  the  only,  but  in 
himself  the  sufficient,  painter  of  French  land- 
scape." 

In  1833  Turner  exhibited  the  first  of  his  eleven 
remarkable  Venetian  pictures,  one  of  the  finest 
being,  "  The  Sun  of  Venice  going  to  Sea."  "  The 
characteristics  which  they  have  in  common,"  says 
Hamerton,  "  are  splendor  of  color  and  carelessness 
of  form ;  the  color  being,  in  most  instances,  really 
founded  upon  the  true  Venetian  color,  but  worked 
up  to  the  utmost  brilliance  which  the  palette 
would  allow,  the  forms  simply  sketched,  exactly 
on  the  principles  of  the  artist's  own  free  sketching 
in  water  colors.  ...  It  is  believed,  and  with 
probability,  that  he  blocked  out  the  picture  almost 
entirely  in  pure  white,  with  only  some  very  pale 
tinting,  just  to  mark  the  position  of  the  objects, 


TURNER.  413 

and  that  this  white  preparation  was  thick  and 
loaded  from  the  beginning.  On  thisjie  afterwards 
painted  thinly  in  oil  or  water-color,  or  both,  so 
that  the  brilliance  of  the  white  shone  through  the 
color,  and  gave  it  that  very  luminous  quality  which 
it  possesses.  This  is  simply  a  return  to  the  early 
Flemish  practice  of  painting  thinly  on  a  light 
ground,  with  the  difference,  however,  that  Turner 
made  a  fresh  ground  of  his  own  between  the  can- 
vas and  his  bright  colors,  and  that  the  modelling  of 
the  impasto  with  the  brush  was  done  in  this  thick 
white.  The  result  was  to  unite  the  brilliance  of 
water-color  to  the  varied  and  rich  surface  of  mas- 
sive oil-painting." 

These  pictures  called  forth  much  adverse  criti- 
cism, but  they  soon  had  a  Herculean  defender 
in  the  "Oxford  Undergraduate"  of  1836,  the 
Ruskin  of  "  Modern  Painters."  In  1839,  Turner 
exhibited  "  The  fighting  Temeraire  tugged  to-  her 
last  berth  to  be  broken  up,  1838."  Thornbury  tells 
how  the  subject  was  suggested  to  Turner. 

"  In  1838,  Turner  was  with  Stanfield  and  a  party 
of  brother  artists  on  one  of  those  holiday  excur- 
sions, in  which  he  so  delighted,  probably  to  end 
with  whitebait  and  champagne  at  Greenwich.  It 
was  at  these  times  that  Turner  talked  and  joked 
his  best,  snatching,  now  and  then,  a  moment  to 
print  on  his  quick  brain  some  tone  of  sky,  some 
gleam  of  water,  some  sprinkling  light  of  oar,  some 
glancing  sunshine  cross-barring  a  sail.  Suddenly 
there  moved  down  upon  the  artist's  boat  the  grand 


414  TURNER. 

old  vessel  that  had  been  taken  prisoner  at  the  Nile 
and  that  led  the  van  at  Trafalgar.  She  loomed 
pale  and  ghostly,  and  was  being  towed  to  her  last 
moorings  at  Deptford  by  a  little  fiery,  puny  steam- 
tug. 

" '  There's  a  fine  subject,  Turner,'  said  Stan- 
field,"  and  the  suggestion  was  gladly  acted  upon. 

Hamerton  says  :  "  The  picture  is,  both  in  senti- 
ment and  execution,  one  of  the  finest  of  the  later 
works.  The  sky  and  water  are  both  magnificent, 
and  the  shipping,  though  not  treated  with  severe 
positive  truth,  is  made  to  harmonize  well  with  the 
rest,  and  not  stuck  upon  the  canvas,  as  often  hap- 
pens in  the  works  of  bad  marine  painters.  The 
sun  sets  in  red,  and  the  red,  by  the  artist's  craft, 
is  made  at  the  same  time  both  decided  in  hue 
and  luminous,  always  a  great  technical  difficulty. 
Golden  sunsets  are  easy  in  comparison,  as  every 
painter  knows.  This  picture  has  more  than  once 
been  associated  by  critics  with  the  magnificent 
'  Ulysses  deriding  Polyphemus,'  which  was  painted 
ten  years  earlier.  Both  are  splendid  in  sky  and 
water,  and  both  are  florid  in  color.  Mr.  Ruskin's 
opinion  is  that  the  period  of  Turner's  central  power, 
1  entirely  developed  and  entirely  unabated,  begins 
with  the  Ulysses,  and  closes  with  the  Temeraire.' 

"  This  decade  had  been  a  time  of  immense 
industry  for  Turner.  In  that  space  he  had  made 
more  than  four  hundred  drawings  for  the  en- 
graver, had  exhibited  more  than  fifty  pictures  in 
the  Royal  Academy,  and  had  executed,  besides, 


TURNER.  415 

some  thousands  of  sketches,  and  probably  many 
private  commissions  which  cannot  easily  be  ascer- 
tained." 

One  reason  of  his  aversion  to  society  was  his 
desire  to  save  time  for  this  great  amount  of  work. 
The  Temeraire,  though  sought  by  several  persons, 
the  artist  refused  to  sell  at  any  price,  and  be- 
queathed it  to  the  nation. 

From  1840  to  1845,  Turner  painted  a  few  pic- 
tures of  great  power.  The  "  Slave  Ship,  slavers 
throwing  overboard  the  dead  and  dying,  typhoon 
coming  on,"  was  exhibited  in  1840.  It  became  the 
property  of  Mr.  Kuskin,  who  sold  it,  and  it  is  now 
in  the  Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts.  It  represents 
a  sunset  on  the  Atlantic  after  a  storm.  It  is  gor- 
geous in  color,  and  is  regarded  by  many  as  the 
grandest  sea  which  Turner  ever  painted.  The 
"  Snowstorm,"  in  1842,  was  harshly  criticised,  and 
called  "  soapsuds  and  whitewash."  The  picture 
represents  a  steamer  off  a  harbor  in  a  storm, 
making  signals. 

Ruskin  says :  "  Turner  was  passing  the  evening 
at  my  father's  house,  on  the  day  this  criticism 
came  out;  and  after  dinner,  sitting  in  his  arm- 
chair, I  heard  him  muttering  low  to  himself  at 
intervals,  '  Soapsuds  and  whitewash  ! '  again,  and 
again,  and  again.  At  last  I  went  to  him,  asking 
'  why  he  minded  what  they  said.'  Then  he  burst 
out :  (  Soapsuds  and  whitewash  !  what  would  they 
have  ?  I  wonder  what  they  think  the  ses-'s  like  '( 
I  wish  they'd  been  in  it ! " 


416  TURNER. 

Turner  had  been  in  the  storm,  and  knew  that 
he  had  painted '  truthfully .  One  night,  when  the 
Ariel  left  Harwich,  he  "  got  the  sailors  to  lash  him 
to  the  mast,  to  observe  the  storm,"  and  remained 
there  four  hours,  not  expecting  to  survive  it. 

"Peace  —  Burial  at  Sea,"  now  in  the  National 
Gallery,  was  exhibited  also  in  1842.  It  was 
painted  to  commemorate  the  funeral  of  Sir  David 
Wilkie,  the  Scottish  artist,  which  had  taken  place 
in  June,  1841,  off  Gibraltar,  some  distance  from 
shore.  Whilst  the  picture  was  on  the  easel,  Stan- 
field  entered  Turner's  studio  and  said,  "You're 
painting  the  sails  very  black,"  to  which  the  artist 
made  answer,  "  If  I  could  find  anything  blacker 
than  black,  I'd  use  it." 

The  deaths  of  Chantrey,  in  1841,  and  of  Callcott, 
in  1844,  deeply  affected  Turner.  "  In  the  death- 
chamber  of  the  former,"  says  George  Jones,  "he 
wrung  my  hands,  tears  streaming  from  his  eyes, 
and  then  rushed  from  the  house  without,  uttering 
a  word."  When  William  Frederick  Wells,  the 
artist,  died  a  few  years  previously,  Turner  went  to 
the  house,  sobbing  like  a  child,  and  saying  to  the 
daughter,  "0  Clara,  Clara!  these  are  iron  tears.  I 
have  lost  the  best  friend  I  ever  had  in  my  life." 

In  1843,  he  took  his  last  journey  to  the  Conti- 
nent, making  many  sketches  about  Lake  Lucerne, 
which  was  very  dear  to  him.  From  1847  to  1849, 
he  paid  several  visits  to  the  photographic  artist 
Mayall,  calling  himself  a  master  in  chancery,  as  he 
did  not  wish  to  be  recognized.  He  was  deeply 


TURNER,  417 

interested  in-  the  progress  of  photography.  When 
Mayall  was  in  pecuniary  trouble  in  consequence  of 
a  lawsuit  about  patent  rights,  Turner,  unasked, 
brought  him  fifteen  hundred  dollars,  telling  him  to 
repay  it  sometime  if  he  could.  He  gladly  accepted 
the  loan  and  paid  it.  After  nearly  two  years, 
Turner  found  that  his  personality  had  become 
known,  and  could  never  be  induced  to  visit  the 
place  again. 

In  1850,  he  sent  his  last  pictures  to  the  Academy : 
"..Eneas  relating  -his  Story  to  Dido,"  "Mercury 
sent  to  admonish  ^Eneas,"  "The  Departure  of  the 
Trojan  Fleet,"  and  "The  Visit  to  the  Tomb." 

He  was  now  seventy-five  years  old.  In  1851, 
he  exhibited  no  pictures,  and  ceased  to  attend  the 
Academy  meetings,  which  had  always  given  him  so 
much  pleasure.  David  Roberts,  the  artist,  wrote 
him,  and  begged  to  be  allowed  to  see  him.  Two 
weeks  later,  Turner  called  at  the  studio.  "I  tried 
to  cheer  him  up,"  says  Koberts,  "  but  he  laid  his 
hand  upon  his  heart  and  replied,  '  No,  no ;  there  is 
something  here  which  is  all  wrong.'  As  he  stood 
by  the  table  in  my  painting-room,  I  could  not  help 
looking  attentively  at  him,  peering  in  his  face,  for 
the  small  eye  (blue)  was  brilliant  as  that  of  a  child, 
and  unlike  the  glazed  and  '  lack-lustre  eye  '  of  age. 
This  was  my  last  look." 

For  several  months,  the  aged  artist  was  absent 
from  his  home  in  Queen-Anne  Street.  Finally, 
Hannah  Danby,  who  had  been  his  housekeeper  for 
fift}r  years,  and  was  said  to  have  been  his  mistress, 


418  TURNER. 

found  a  letter  in  the  pocket  of  an  old  coat,  which 
led  her  to  believe  he  was  in  Chelsea.  She  and  a 
relative  sought  him,  and  found  Jiim,  December  18, 
1851,  very  ill,  in  a  small  plain  cottage  on  the 
banks  of  the  Thames,  owned  by  Sophia  Caroline 
Booth.  He  was  called  "  Admiral  Booth  "  by  her 
neighbors,  who  thought  him  an  admiral  in  reduced 
circumstances.  He  died  the  day  after  his  friends 
found  him.  An  hour  before  his  death,  he  was 
wheeled  to  the  window  to  look  out  upon  the  Thames, 
and  bathe  in  the  sunshine  which  he  so  dearly  loved. 
"  So  died,"  says  Monkhouse,  "  the  great  solitary 
genius,  Turner,  the  first  of  all  men  to  endeavor  to 
paint  the  full  power  of  the  sun,  the  greatest  imagi- 
nation that  ever  sought  expression  in  landscape, 
the  greatest  pictorial  interpreter  of  the  elemental 
forces  of  nature  that  ever  lived.  .  .  .  Sunlight  was 
his  discovery  ;  he  had  found  its  presence  in 
shadow;  he  had  studied  its  complicated  reflec- 
tions before  he  commenced  to  work  in  color. 
From  monochrome  he  had  adopted  the  low  scale 
of  the  old  masters,  but  into  it  he  carried  his  light ; 
the  brown  clouds,  and  shadows  and  mists,  had  the 
sun  behind  them,  as  it  were,  in  veiled  splendor. 
Then  it  came  out  and  flooded  his  drawings  and  his 
canvases  with  a  glory  unseen  before  in  art.  But 
he  must  go  on,  refine  upon  this ;  having  eclipsed 
all  others,  he  must  now  eclipse  himself.  His  gold 
must  turn  to  yellow,  and  yellow  almost  into 
white,  before  his  genius  could  be  satisfied  with 
its  efforts  to  express  pure  sunlight." 


TURNER.  419 

Turner  was  buried  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  be- 
tween the  tombs  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  and  James 
Barry,  the  service  being  read  by  Dean  Milrnan. 
By  his  will,  he  left  all  his  pictures  and  drawings 
to  the  nation,  to  be  preserved  in  a  "  Turner  Gal- 
lery," specifying  that  "  The  Sun  Rising  in  Mist " 
and  "  Dido  building  Carthage "  should  be  hung 
between  the  two  pictures  painted  by  Claude,  the 
"  Seaport  "  and  "  Mill."  During  his  life  he  is  said 
to  have  refused  two  offers  of  five  hundred  thousand 
dollars  for  the  pictures  in  his  Queen-Anne  Street 
house.  He  left  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  to 
the  Royal  Academy,  five  thousand  dollars  for  a 
monument  to  himself  in  St.  Paul's,  a  few  small 
bequests  for  relatives,  money  for  a  medal  to  be 
given  for  the  best  landscape  exhibited  at  the  Acad- 
emy every  two  or  three  years,  and  the  remainder 
of  a  large  fortune  for  the  maintenance  of  "poor 
and  decayed  male  artists  being  born  in  England 
and  of  English  parents  only,  and  lawful  issue  ;  " 
the  latter  gift  to  be  known  as  "  Turner's  Gift." 

The  will  was  contested  by  relatives,  and,  after 
four  years  of  litigation,  the  testator's  intention  to 
provide  for  aged  artists  was  disregarded,  and  the 
property  given  to  the  "nearest  of  kin."  Such 
instances  are  teaching  our  great  men  to  carry  out 
their  benevolent  wishes  in  their  lifetime.  Though 
Turner  had  great  faults,  —  it  is  stated  that  he 
drank  to  excess  in  later  years,  —  he  had  great  vir- 
tues. Though  parsimonious  with  himself,  he  was 
generous  to  others.  Ruskin  tells  these  incidents : 


420  TURNER. 

"  There  was  a  painter  of  the  name  of  Bird,  and 
when  Bird  first  sent  a  picture  to  the  Academy  for 
exhibition,  Turner  was  on  the  hanging  committee. 
Bird's  picture  had  great  merit ;  but  no  place  for  it 
could  be  found.  Turner  pleaded  hard  for  it.  No, 
the  thing  was  impossible.  Turner  sat  down  and 
looked  at  Bird's  picture  a  long  time ;  then  insisted 
that  a  place  must  be  found  for  it.  He  was  still 
met  by  the  assertion  of  impracticability.  He  said 
no  more,  but  took  down  one  of  his  own  pictures, 
sent  it  to  the  Academy,  and  hung  Bird's  in  its 
place.  ...  At  the  death  of  a  poor  drawing-master, 
Mr.  Wells,  whom  Turner  had  long  known,  he  was 
deeply  affected,  and  lent  money  to  the  widow  until 
a  large  sum  had  accumulated.  She  was  both  hon- 
est and  grateful,  and,  after  a  long  period,  was 
happy  enough  to  be  able  to  return  to  her  benefac- 
tor the  whole  sum  she  had  received  from  him. 
She  waited  on  him  with  it ;  but  Turner  kept  his 
hands  in  his  pocket.  '  Keep  it,'  he  said,  '  and 
send  your  children  to  school  and  to  church.'  He 
said  this  in  bitterness ;  he  had  himself  been  sent 
to  neither." 

Once,  after  sending  an  importunate  beggar  from 
his  house,  he  relented,  ran  after  her,  and  gave  her 
a  five-pound  note. 

Says  Thornbury:  "An  early  patron  of  Turner, 
when  he  was  a  mere  industrious  barber's  son,  work- 
ing at  three-shilling  drawings  in  his  murky  bed- 
room, had  seen  some  of  them  in  a  window  in  the 
Haymarket,  and  had  bought  them.  From  that 


TURNER.  421 

time  he  had  gone  on  buying  and  being  kind  to  the 
rising  artist,  and  Turner  could  not  forget  it.  Years 
after,  he  heard  that  his  old  benefactor  had  become 
involved,  and  that  his  steward  had  received  direc- 
tions to  cut  down  some  valued  trees.  Instantly 
Turner's  generous  impulses  were  roused ;  his  usual 
parsimony  (all  directed  to  one  great  object)  was 
cast  behind  him.  He  at  once  wrote  to  the  steward, 
concealing  his  name,  and  sent  him  the  full  amount ; 
many,  many  thousands  —  as  much  as  twenty  thou- 
sand pounds,  I  believe. 

"  The  gentleman  never  knew  who  was  his  bene- 
factor ;  but,  in  time,  his  affairs  rallied,  and  he  was 
enabled  to  pay  the  whole  sum  back.  Years  again 
rolled  on,  and  now  the  son  of  Turner's  benefactor 
became  involved.  Again  the  birds  of  the  air 
brought  the  news  to  the  guardian  angel  of  the 
family;  again  he  sent  the  necessary  thousands 
anonymously;  again  the  son  stopped  the  leak, 
righted  himself,  and  returned  the  whole  sum  with 
thanks." 

Ruskin  says :  "  He  had  a  heart  as  intensely  kind 
and  as  nobly  true  as  God  ever  gave  to  one  of  his 
creatures.  .  .  .  Having  known  Turner  for  ten 
years,  and  that  during  the  period  of  his  life  when 
the  highest  qualities  of  his  mind  were  in  many 
respects  diminished,  and  when  he  was  suffering 
most  from  the  evil  speaking  of  the  world,  I  never 
heard  him  say  one  depreciating  word  of  living  man 
or  man's  work.  I  never  saw  him  look  an  unkind 
or  blameful  look.  I  never  saw  him  let  pass,  with- 


422  TURNER. 

out  some  sorrowful  remonstrance  or  endeavor  at 
mitigation,  a  blameful  word  spoken  by  another. 
Of  no  man  but  Turner  whom  I  have  ever  known 
could  I  say  this ;  and  of  this  kindness  and  truth 
came,  I  repeat,  all  his  highest  power ;  and  all  his 
failure  and  error,  deep  and  strange,  came  of  his 
faithlessness."  Probably  Mr.  Ruskin  means  lack  of 
religious  faith,  as  Mr.  Thornbury  says  Turner 
feared  that  he  would  be  annihilated. 

Turner  was  a  most  pains-taking  worker.  "  Every 
quarter  of  an  inch  of  Turner's  drawings,"  says 
Ruskin,  "  will  bear  magnifying ;  and  much  of  the 
finer  work  in  them  can  hardly  be  traced,  except  by 
the  keenest  sight,  until  it  is  magnified.  In  his 
painting  of  '  Ivy  Bridge,'  the  veins  are  drawn  on 
the  wing  of  a  butterfly  not  three  lines  in  diameter ; 
and  I  have  one  of  his  smaller  drawings  of  '  Scar- 
borough '  in  my  own  possession,  in  which  the  mus- 
cle shells  on  the  beach  are  rounded,  and  some 
shown  as  shut,  some  as  open,  though  none  are  as 
large  as  the  letters  of  this  type  :  and  yet  this  is  the 
man  who  was  thought  to  belong  to  the  'dashing' 
school,  literally  because  most  people  had  not 
patience  or  delicacy  of  sight  enough  to  trace  his 
endless  details." 

He  loved  poetry,  and  sometimes  attempted  to 
write  it.  He  was  seldom  true  to  nature  in  his 
work.  Hamerton  says:  "With  an  immense  and 
unwearied  industry,  Turner  accumulated  thousands 
and  thousands  of  memoranda  to  increase  his  knowl- 
edge of  what  interested  him,  especially  in  the 


TURNER.  423 

mountains,  rivers,  and  cities  of  the  Continent,  and 
the  coasts  of  his  native  island.  Amidst  all  this 
wealth  of  gathered  treasure,  his  imagination  reigned 
and  revelled  with  a  poet's  freedom.  With  a 
knowledge  of  landscape  vaster  than  any  mortal 
ever  possessed  before  him,  his  whole  existence 
was  a  succession  of  dreams.  Even  the  hardest 
realities  of  the  external  world  itself,  granite  and 
glacier,  could  not  awaken  him  ;  but  he  wotild  sit 
down  before  them  and  sketch  another  dream,  there, 
in  the  very  presence  of  the  reality  itself.  Not- 
withstanding all  the  knowledge  and  all  the  ob- 
servation which  they  prove,  the  interest  of 
Turner's  twenty  thousand  sketches  is  neither 
topographic  nor  scientific,  but  entirely  psychologi- 
cal. It  is  the  soul  of  Turner  that  fascinates  the 
student,  and  not  the  material  earth." 

With  little  education  from  the  schools,  without 
distinguished  ancestry,  in  the  midst  of  many  dis- 
appointments and  much  censure,  Turner  came  to 
great  renown.  He  had  talent,  but  he  had  also  un- 
tiring industry  and  unlimited  perseverance. 


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